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Full Version: Myth of the balance of nature: Nature is a highly dynamic system
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https://www.nationalgeographic.com/envir...explained/

EXCERPT: . . . Mufasa explains to his young son Simba: “Everything you see exists together, in a delicate balance.” The line is a hallmark of the Disney movie the "Lion King" ... John Kricher just rewatched the scene from 1994. While the Wheaton College professor and author of The Balance of Nature: Ecology's Enduring Myth is a fan of James Earl Jones’ deep baritone delivery, he says “it’s not sound science.”

Scientists have long abandoned the idea of there being a “balance of nature,” in favor of more dynamic ecological frameworks. But, having been ingrained in popular culture over millennia, it’s proven much harder for the public to shake. The metaphor is alive and well today, appearing everywhere from newspapers, Legos, and a health food brand name to social media, and, of course, the Lion King reboot.

The misconception impacts everything from conservation management to climate change policy; and it’s a concept that scientists would like to see plucked from the public’s vocabulary. “It's a satisfying term,” says Kricher. “But it's not useful.”

The notion that nature exists in some sort of balance, or harmony, dates back to at least the ancient Greeks. [...] “It’s so old,” said Kim Cuddington, a professor at the University of Waterloo, in Canada, that “it's very much embedded, at least in Western culture.”

Even among scientists, the balance of nature concept persisted for centuries. Charles Darwin, the famous naturalist, alluded to it in his work on natural selection, as did his contemporaries, such as Herbert Spencer. The approach bled into the twentieth century, with, for example, the belief that leaving the wilderness wild was the best method of conservation or that pollution was a disruptor of the natural order.

But it was around that same time that people also began to challenge balance of nature thinking. In 1949, environmentalist Aldo Leopold wrote, “The image commonly employed in conservation education is 'the balance of nature.' For reasons too lengthy to detail here, this figure of speech fails to describe accurately what little we know about the land mechanism.”

Also at that time, science was becoming more data driven, and ecology a more established discipline. “When the data don't support it, then you have to revise your idea,” said Kricher, explaining that that’s exactly what happened with the balance of nature. Ecologists shifted away from community-based sociological models to increasingly mathematical, individualist theories. And, throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the phrase balance of nature largely disappeared from the scientific lexicon. “Ecologists,” said Kricher, “had a tacit understanding that the [phrase] was largely metaphorical.”

[...] The updated view is that “change is constant,” said Matt Palmer, an ecologist at Columbia University. And as the new approach took hold, conservation and management policies also adapted. “In some ways it argues for a stronger hand in managing ecosystems or natural resources,” he said. “It's going to take human intervention.” [...] “We have to accept responsibility for what we're doing,” he said, “and not just say that nature will take care of it.” (MORE - details)