2017 ESA Annual Meeting (August 6 -- 11)

IGN 19-2 - The numbers game

Thursday, August 10, 2017
C123, Oregon Convention Center
Tom Curtis, Newcastle University, United Kingdom
The numbers in microbial ecology are not astronomical. They are much bigger. Most microbial ecologists study systems that are vaster than our galaxy (1011stars). Huge complex systems need numbers and theory. But the theory must be tested: rigorously. This means: rigorously determining parameters, making independent predictions and tests. Not qualitatively reproducing patterns with fitted parameters. When was the last time you saw a paper on a parameter, a prediction or a test? So lets test what theories we can and discard what we cannot and escape from the ecological dark ages. Take no ones word for it, not even Hutchinson’s