p.2 Most ecologists feel there is no core principle or dictum that defines the science [of ecology]... Despite
a number of interesting and widely popular observations on regularities in ecosystem behavior, the conventional wisdom remains
that ecology lacks a central dogma... I wish to argue in the pages that follow that the notion that ecology lacks
a coherent theoretical framework is quite simply mistaken... Little attention has been paid to these developments by those
outside ecology, or even by most of those who set the trends for the frontline ecological journals, and the reason
for this neglect is not obscure: The emerging picture of ecosystem behavior does not resemble the worldview imparted
by an extrapolation of conceptual trends established in other sciences... It is apparent to many, however, that
ecosystems behave in ways that are very different from the systems described by other sciences. [JLJ - seems
to me, therefore, that ecological science offers an alternate approach to defining and brainstorming solutions for your tough-to-solve
problem. It might not, but it is worth a look.]
p.6 ecology may well be a preferred theater in which to search for principles that might
offer very broad implications for science in general... ecology... could in fact become the key to a radical leap
in scientific thought. A new perspective on how things happen in the ecological world might conceivably break the conceptual
logjams that currently hinder progress in understanding evolutionary phenomena, developmental biology, the rest of the life
sciences [JLJ - in ecology, the lab work (or results) are already done for you - you just have to be a perceptive
observer of nature in whatever form is similar to the problem you are solving. You have to be a keen observer, which means
that you have to take your mind off your own internal dialog and learn how to be objective and unemotional in your recorded
perceptions. Charles Darwin did not need a lab, lab assistants, or large computer resources and software - he just
got up out of his chair and went to the opposite side of the world to observe nature. He then used common sense to piece together
his observations into a theory that explained, in simplest terms, what he observed.
Due to the diversity of nature, it should not be hard finding a natural process which is similar
to your tough-to-solve problem, that you can observe for clues applicable to solutions. I could not agree more strongly with
Ulanowicz's statements that "ecology may well be a preferred theater in which to search for principles that might
offer very broad implications for science in general".]
p.8-9 Ascendency combines the "size" or magnitude of system activity with the degree of coherency and
organization among its component processes2... Ascendency and associated indices piece together various elements
of the developmental puzzle
p.9 2For those who may be curious, I have chosen the alternate spelling with an "e" to distinguish
this complex ecological term from the common use of "ascendancy" to mean simply "dominance." The term as I use it here has
a double meaning. In the conventional sense, a system with a greater ascendency has the capability to dominate another system
with less of the attribute. The second meaning comes from the root word "ascend" and so suggests the image of order "rising
out" of chaos.
p.9-10 chapter 7 is a brief summary of some applications for ascendency theory that have
been attempted. These not only include the quantification of ecosystem status (e.g., response to perturbations, assessment
of ecosystem "health" or "integrity," comparison of trophic status, etc.) but pertain as well to problems outside
ecology, such as evaluating the performance of neural networks, economic communities, and systems for distributed
computation. [JLJ - computer games?]
p.10 I suggest that our perception of causes colors our approach to practical and philosophical
issues... [an approach to research, certain attitudes and opinions] all turn on views of causality.
p.75 In the absence of overwhelming external disturbances, living systems exhibit a natural propensity
to increase in ascendency... The word overwhelming qualifying disturbances implies that living systems
are always subjected to disturbances... that the statement is statistical in nature is revealed by the use of the word
propensity... Missing from the central postulate is the word maximize.
p.77 From its very beginning, ascendency was conceived for the purpose of unifying disparate, empirical
observations on how ecosystems grow and develop.
p.77 We used Shannon's formula to quantify the complexity of the system in its most indeterminate configuration.
Thereafter, we identified information as anything that constrains the system elements so as to change their probability assignments
away from the values they have in the most indeterminate state. The amount by which the complexity in the indeterminate state
is diminished by the constraints became the information value assigned to those constraints.
p.77 the development capacity can be expressed as the sum of the organized ascendency and the still-indeterminate
overhead. Equivalently, the system ascendency becomes the difference between system capacity and overhead (figure
4.7). This latter relationship allows us to divide the question of what limits the increase in ascendency into two complementary
aspects: (1) What limits increases in system capacity? and (2) What keeps overhead from disappearing?
p.83 A system that is sustained via only a few pathways is highly vulnerable to disruptions of those lines.
We conclude, then, that systems develop in the direction of more efficient imports along fewer links up to the point where
environmental disruptions of those links create the need for compensatory additions from other, less-efficient sources.
As a result of this balance, we would expect a narrower dependence on sources to develop in more benign environments, and
a more uniform reliance to prevail in more rigorous surroundings.
p.110 In formulating the concept of exergy, Evans (1969)... connotes the energy
that potentially could appear as work. Exergy thus measures a content or stock... it is
usually far easier to take data on stocks than to measure flows.
p.139 Ascendency provides a way to estimate the relative values of biotic stocks as members of a
functioning ecosystem... Ascendency, being a work function, serves as a closer analog to the "capital generation
function" in economics. Accordingly, there is more reason to believe that the relative values of resources will be better
assessed by the new technique. [JLJ - we see the analog of assessing the dynamic values of pieces in a chess game.]
p.155 A healthy, or mature, system has both a high ascendency and a high overhead.
back cover Ecology, the Ascendent Perspective demonstrates that a theoretically reshaped
science of ecology, better suited to portraying the dynamics of the natural world, can be a more effective means of ensuring
its health.
