Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Adaptive Inference For Distinguishing Credible From Incredible Patterns In Nature, C. S. Holling, Craig R. Allen

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

Strong inference is a powerful and rapid tool that can be used to identify and explain patterns in molecular biology, cell biology, and physiology. It is effective where causes are single and separable and where discrimination between pairwise alternative hypotheses can be determined experimentally by a simple yes or no answer. But causes in ecological systems are multiple and overlapping and are not entirely separable. Frequently, competing hypotheses cannot be distinguished by a single unambiguous test, but only by a suite of tests of different kinds, that produce a body of evidence to support one line of argument and not …