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Savanna Blog

The Ecology of Suffering (and joy, I guess)

10Facebook InstagramTwitterYouTubeBuddhist teaching says that life is suffering. That overstates the point a little bit (for a good reason) but it is true. Buddhist teaching goes on to say that we suffer because we ‘desire.’ There I disagree. I think there is a much more fundamental reason for our suffering, one that is much easier to […]

Paleoecology and Agronomy Part II

10Facebook InstagramTwitterYouTubeIn our interactions with the ecosystem we need a healthy dose of humility. Paleoecology can provide that humility. There are many organisms that have this survival thing down much better than we do. Let’s figure out how they do that. I was surprised by how controversial this was last time, so I am going to […]

Paleoecology is More Important than Agronomy. And Everything Else.

The other day I heard Darren Naish and John conway, of the excellent Tetrapod Zoology Podcast, stumble over the question of why Paleontology is important. This was apparently a spill over from a whole panel of experts stumbling over this question at the Pop Paleo conference. I want to talk to the guys about this, […]

Wolves

An understanding of the paleoecology can shed new light on our current political debate and open up new options for win/win solutions. In other words, my opinions about wolves will make everyone on all sides of the political spectrum angry. Before I do that, I will make everyone angry by talking about what I did […]

Disturbing. Or is it?

Words are so useful because they point to Truth. But if they don’t point to Truth, they point away from Truth. As such I think it is time that we ecologists have a sit down with the word “disturbance” and ask, ‘what have you done for us lately?’ While we’re at it, we can have […]

Taxonomy Needs a Complete Reorganization (and other surefire ways of creating viral Facebook content)

Both Separate and Connected. But how? I love to beat up on taxonomists because they tend to be constitutionally opposite of me. I see taxonomists as the accountants of the biological sciences, obsessed with making up rules out of thin air and trying to make everyone think they were made by God. But, I hate […]