Abstract
In science, as in art, we often try to create simple abstractions that faithfully represent the workings of the natural world (Hofstadter 1980; Prignogine and Stengers 1984). Ecological models built this way have many virtues, not the least of which is the clarity that emerges when excessive detail is removed from our vision of reality (Starfield and Bleloch 1986). However, although simplicity is a worthwhile objective in building models, it is less important than fidelity — the processes we model must remain fundamentally loyal to processes in nature. Otherwise, our abstractions will obscure rather than clarify the behavior of ecological systems.
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Hobbs, N.T. (1990). Diet Selection by Generalist Herbivores: A Test of the Linear Programming Model. In: Hughes, R.N. (eds) Behavioural Mechanisms of Food Selection. NATO ASI Series, vol 20. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-75118-9_20
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