In 1995, Paine finally allowed starfish to return to the Tatoosh shore after 25 years of continuous exile. “I thought, I'm not going to live forever, so let's see what happens if I let the starfish back.” Their numbers have rebounded, the mussels are losing ground, and the shore is returning to the state it was in before Paine's interference. The same cannot be said for ecology. It will never be the same after Paine.

This article is reproduced with permission from the magazine Nature. The article was first published on January 16, 2013.

2 Comments

1. 1. jctyler 03:37 PM 1/16/13

   Very interesting. Do I understand correctly that Paine is to ecology what Lorenz was to weather prediction? Even that Paine discovered ecology's butterfly-effect at the same time?
   
   Great article (even if my observation was wrong).

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2. 2. royniles 02:29 PM 1/18/13

   All of this tends to show to evolutionists that all evolution is the proximate result of the entity involved reacting strategically to its experience.
   It also tends to confirm my own writings that, in effect, everything that exists takes intelligent advantage of accidents. But that's a story for another ecological time and place.

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