Wildlife Science: Gaining Reliable Knowledge

Document Type

Article

Journal/Book Title

Rangelands

Publisher

Society for Range Management

Publication Date

12-1985

Volume

7

Issue

6

First Page

249

Last Page

255

Abstract

Like the Kalbab deer herd, progress In wildlife science may be headed for a crash under the weight of unreliable knowledge. Knowledge, the set of ideas that agree or are consistent with the facts of nature, is discovered through the application of scientific methods. There is no single, all-purpose scientific method; instead, there are several, each suited to a different purpose. When the set of scientific methods is incomplete, or when one method is used for a purpose better fit by another, or when a given method is applied without paying strict attention to the control of extraneous influences, then these errors of misuse cause knowledge to become unreliable.

Comments

Originally published by the Society for Range Management. Publisher's PDF and article fulltext available through remote link via JSTOR.
Note: This article is an invited abridged version of the 1981 article "Wildlife Science: Gaining Reliable Knowledge"

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