Communication Between Ecologists and Conservationists

I've done some significant "narrowing down" with respect to my research these last two weeks. I started with a vague notion that I wanted to do a sort of methodological trajectory of how conservationists have dealt with and deal with uncertainty (specifically, interventional uncertainty and counterfactual uncertainty...more in later posts) in their models. Now, I would like to look at this history from the angle of communication between those who make ecological predictions and those who engage in conservation policy. More specifically, the type of communication I am interested in is visual representations, e.g., diagrams. The questions, then, are: how do (have) ecologists visually represent(ed) to conservationists how they are (were) dealing with uncertainty (if at all) of the kinds mentioned parenthetically above and how this helps (helped) decision-makers evaluate the effects of management under uncertainty (if at all).

Currently, many meta-scientists (e.g., Sarkar) and scientists (e.g., Goodman and Wade) believe that the gap between science and policy in conservation and managerial contexts can be filled with some sort of a Bayesian framework. One such framework, the Bayesian Belief Network (BBN) causal modeling framework, is increasingly being used in conservation biology. I plan to start focusing on this framework as it relies heavily on diagrammatic representations in communicating causal and probabilistic information. Later, I would like to look at this topic by focusing on Island Biogeography-inspired conservation and the (in)famous single-large or several-small (SLOSS) debate on reserve design. The ultimate goal is to measure to what degree of progress (if any) has been made in dealing with uncertainty through communicating with visual representations. Moreover, if such progress (at least, methodological progress) can be shown to be, in part, the result of visual representations, then we might consider what sort of structure conservation biology/practice has. Rather than a general and theoretical end-product (as in, say, physics), conservation biology/practice may be instead a general algorithm or procedure that outputs reliable decision protocols in the face of uncertainty (where the construction of diagrams is central). Along the way, a taxonomy of diagrams may be built as well. Excited yet?

Framing

I don't know about you, but I can't read.

Let me make this more explicit: I can't just read. When I'm doing research, I have to have some research questions in mind or at least a frame of mind when approaching the material. At the beginning of research (and I am most certainly at the beginning stages right now) it is not always easy to have precise questions in mind.

However, typically one has some sort of presuppositions about the topic of interest or some sort of "frame of mind" about (i) the current literature and (ii) how to approach it. For me, my current frame of mind or hunch about my topic of interest is that a philosophical (and methodological) history of why conservation practitioners attempt to overcome problems of uncertainty in the manner in which they do, would be an important "gap-filler" in the current literature. It seems to me that there are many histories on the practice of conservation that focus on the sociological and legislative contexts of why conservationists attempt to conserve biodiversity in the face of uncertainty in the way that they do. Although, I think these "histories" are important, they do not reveal a complete picture of the trajectory of conservation practice.

So, I want to start with a more philosophical (and methodological) frame of mind. Now, I can start reading.