"This project involves 24 investigators across three continents," Collins said. "It's so large because the problem is big and complicated -- the questions require an integrative, interdisciplinary approach.
"As we went through thinking about how to answer the questions, we really had to think about how we did the science. And how we did the science had to change -- it couldn't be just an individual investigator laboring away in an isolated laboratory. Rather, we imagined a set of simultaneous interactions between investigators from at least six different sub-areas. You really need a combination of specialists and then also generalists to tie everything together and keep the inquiry moving."
Working out how to plan and coordinate the project's science, Collins argues, may have a value almost as great as the research itself, and may have important implications, particularly for ecology. Not only do ecologists need to begin forming scientific partnerships with scientists from a wide array of scientific speciality areas, he argues, but the science also needs to begin incorporating knowledge and information from disciplines that are outside the traditional "hard" sciences.
"This project has implications for how you do science. In a sense, it is about defining the whole conceptual focus of ecology, particularly in that to understand this problem we have to do a better job of integrating humans into ecological and evolutionary theory. This means that ecology, as a hard natural science, will also need to start doing a better job of becoming integrated with the social sciences and probably the humanities. The nature of science itself is going to have to change," he said.
Though the project is about frogs and salamanders, humans are also on Collins' mind because, in someway or other, they are sure to be a key factor.
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Contact: James Hathaway
hathaway@asu.edu
480-965-6375
Arizona State University
13-Feb-2000