Open AccessHistory of Ecological Sciences, Part 34: A Changing Economy of Nature
Author(s) -
Egerton Frank N.
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
the bulletin of the ecological society of america
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2327-6096
pISSN - 0012-9623
DOI - 10.1890/0012-9623-91.1.21
Subject(s) - erasmus+ , darwin (adl) , conservatism , naturalism , natural history , history , origin of species , environmental ethics , philosophy , ecology , classics , biology , epistemology , art history , political science , computer science , law , software engineering , the renaissance , politics
In 1749, when Linnaeus believed in unchanging species, he developed a static economy of nature concept, in which the organisms in nature interact with each other according to a designed plan (Egerton 2007). Later, he lost confidence that species never change, but did not rethink the economy of nature from his new perspective. After him, others did. A curious example was Scottish naturalist Rev. John Fleming (1785–1857), who discussed the limitations of Linnaeus’ concept in his Philosophy of Zoology (1822), “but [Fleming’s] commitment to natural theology and his ultra-conservatism in theoretical matters prevented him from constructing a coherent vision of nature’s operations to replace the lost world of Linnaeus” (Rehbock 1985:137, England 2004). The focus here is on naturalists who were more theoretically daring than Fleming.