This is a unique, groundbreaking collection of autobiographical essays by leading women in philosophy. It provides a glimpse at the experiences of the generation that witnessed, and helped create, the remarkable advances now evident for women in the field.

The argument in this essay is twofold. (1) Procedural justice requires,in particular cases, that we restrict property rights in natural resources, e.g., California agricultural land or Appalachian coal land. (2) Conditions imposed by Locke's political theory and by dense population require,in general, that we restrict property rights in finite or non-renewable natural resources such as land. If these arguments are correct, then we have a moral imperative to use land-use controls (such as taxation, planning, zoning, and acreage limitations) to restructure (...) land ownership and land use in a far more radical way than has ever been accomplished in the past. (shrink)

When Kangas suggested in 1986 that wildlife reserve designs could be much smaller than previously thought, community ecologists attacked his views on methodological grounds (island biogeographical theory is beset with uncertainties) and on conservation grounds (Kangas seemed to encourage deforestation and extinction). Kangas' defenders, like Simberloff, argued that in a situation of biological uncertainty (the degree/type of deforestation-induced extinction), scientists ought to follow the epistemologically conservative course and risk type-II error (the risk of not rejecting a null hypothesis that is (...) false), rather than type-I error. (This is the risk of rejecting a null hypothesis that is true). Kangas' opponents, like Noss, argued that, in a situation of scientific uncertainty, scientists ought to risk type-I, rather than type-II, error. This essay argues that there are different types of rationality appropriate to science and applied science and, therefore, in cases of applied science (like conservation biology), the more conservative course of action is for scientists to risk type-I error. The essay argues further that, on grounds of scientific rationality, Kangas, Simberloff, and others were correct in risking type-II error, but that, on grounds of decision-theoretic rationality, Noss, Waide, and others were correct in risking type-I error. (shrink)

Despite significant scientific uncertainties and strong public opposition, there appears to be an “iron triangle” of industry, government,and consultants/contractors promoting the siting of the world’s first permanent geological repository for high-level nuclear waste and spent fuel, proposed for Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Arguing that representatives of this iron triangle have ignored important epistemological and ethical difficulties with the proposed facility, I conclude that the business climate surrounding this triangle appears to leave little room for consideration of ethical issues related to public (...) safety, environmental welfare, and citizen consent to risk. If my analysis of the Yucca Mountain case is correct and typical, then some of themost pressing questions of business ethics may concern how to break the iron triangle or, at least, how to expand it into a quadrilateral that includes the public. (shrink)

Eighty percent of (commercial) genetically engineered seeds (GES) are designed only to resist herbicides. Letting farmers use more chemicals, they cut labor costs. But developing nations say GES cause food shortages, unemployment, resistant weeds, and extinction of native cultivars when “volunteers” drift nearby. While GES patents are reasonable, this paper argues many patent policies are not. The paper surveys GE technology, outlines John Locke’s classic account of property rights, and argues that current patent policies must be revised to take account (...) of Lockean ethical constraints. After answering a key objection, it provides concrete suggestions for implementing its ethical conclusions. (shrink)

Week-old embryos are considered the richest source of stem cells usable in medical treatments. Because the embryos are destroyed when the stem cells are removed, the debate over the embryo's legal, moral, political, and scientific status has exploded. In this debate, Sheldon Krimsky's Stem Cell Dialogues: A Philosophical and Scientific Inquiry into Medical Frontiers is the single best book. Evenhanded, eminently readable, up to date, educational, scientifically precise, powerfully researched, and very entertaining, Krimsky's slim volume is one that no scientist, (...) policy-maker, ethicist, or intelligent reader should miss. (shrink)

Mark Twain said that, for people whose only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. In Thinking about Technology, Joe Pitt's main tools appear to be those of the philosopher of science, so it is not surprising that he claims most problems of philosophy of technology are epistemic problems. As he puts it: 'The strategy here is straightforward. Philosophers of science have examined in detail a number of concepts integral to our understanding of what makes science what it (...) is. The bottom line is this: philosophical questions about technology are first and foremost questions about what we can know about a specific technology and its effects and in what that knowledge consists'. Although Pitt points out important disanalogies between scientific and technological knowledge, nevertheless he emphasizes that philosophy of technology is primarily epistemology. Pitt has stipulatively defined ethical and political analyses of technology as not part of philosophy and philosophy of technology. While claiming to assess the foundations of philosophy of technology, he has adopted a reductionist approach to his subject matter, one that ignores or denigrates the majority of work in philosophy of technology. Does Pitt's bold, reductionist move succeed? (shrink)

The "prevailing opinion" among decision theorists, according to John Harsanyi, is to use the Bayesian rule, even in situations of uncertainty. I want to argue that the prevailing opinion is wrong, at least in the case of societal risks under uncertainty. Admittedly Bayesian rules are better in many cases of individual risk or certainty. (Both Bayesian and maximin strategies are sometimes needed.) Although I shall not take the time to defend all these points in detail, I shall argue (1) that (...) there are compelling reasons for rejecting Harsanyi's defense of the Bayesian strategy under uncertainty; (2) that it is more rational, in specific types of situations, to prefer the maximin strategy; and (3) that calibrating expert opinions is superior to using the equiprobability assumption or subjective probabilities. (shrink)

Comparing alternative scientific theories obviously is relevant to theory assessment, but are comparativists (like Laudan) correct when they also make it necessary? This paper argues that they are not. Defining rationality solely in terms of theories' comparative problem-solving strengths, comparativist philosophers of science like Laudan subscribe to what I call the irrelevance claim (IC) and the necessity claim (NC). According to IC, a scientific theory's being well or poorly confirmed is "irrelevant" to its acceptance; NC is the claim that "all (...) evaluations of research traditions and theories must be made within a comparative context," how any theory "compares with its competitors" (Laudan 1977, 21, 120). Using current competing theories (T1 and T2) of population viability assessment (PVA) for the Florida panther, the paper investigates IC/NC. In part because dominant T2 panther biologists accept IC/NC (which T1 theorists reject), the paper argues that they appear both to have accepted flawed T2 and to have contributed to flawed panther science and policy. Correcting Laudan's Comparativist Philosophy of Science (LCPS), underlying the T1-versus-T2 debate, thus may hold promise for helping resolve both the scientific and policy controversy over panther PVA. (shrink)

Workers generally face higher levels of pollution and risk in their workplace than members of the public. Economists justify the double standard on the grounds of the compensating wage differential . The CWD, or hazard-pay premium, is the increment in wages, all things being equal, that workers in hazardous environments receive, as compared to other workers. Economists defend the CWD by asserting that workers willingly trade safety for extra money. This essay examines the theory behind the CWD, presents and evaluates (...) economists' Market-Efficiency Argument for the CWD, offers several reasons for questioning the CWD, and applies the Market-Efficiency Argument to a real-world case, that of U. S. nuclear workers. The essay concludes that this argument fails to justify the CWD, at least in the case of U. S. nuclear workers. (shrink)

While their strength, electrical, optical, or magnetic properties are expected to contribute a trillion dollars in global commerce before 2015, nanomaterials also appear to pose threats to human health and safety. Nanotoxicology is the study of these threats. Do nanomaterial benefits exceed their risks? Should all nanomaterials be regulated? Currently nanotoxicologists cannot help answer these questions because too little is known about nanomaterials, because their properties differ from those of bulk materials having the same chemical composition, and because they differ (...) so widely in their applications. Instead, this paper answers a preliminary ethical question: What nanotech policies are likely to contribute to society’s ability to give or withhold free informed consent to the potential risks associated with production and use of nanomaterials? This paper argues that at least four current policies appear to jeopardize the risk-disclosure condition that is required for informed consent. These are the funding problem, the conflict-of-interest problem, the labeling problem, and the extrapolation problem. Apart from future decisions on how to ethically make, use, and regulate nanomaterials, this paper argues that, at a minimum, these four policies must be modified. Government must spend greater monies on nanotoxicology; ensure independent nanotoxicology research; label consumer products containing nanomaterials; and avoid assuming that nanotoxicological properties are based merely on mass and chemical composition. Otherwise free informed consent to these new technologies and materials may be jeopardized. (shrink)

Scientists and engineers often are not much interested in theoretical-ethics discussions. Frequently, like Harvard’s Cass Sunstein (2002), they propose “freemarket environmentalism,” basing environmental decisions on cost-benefit analysis and on saving the greatest number of lives for the fewest number of dollars. They say that when society overregulates, by emotively and irrationally rejecting environmental-risk decisions based only on cost-benefit analysis (CBA), it reduces manufacturing jobs, shrinks the economic pie, makes people poorer, and thus causes unnecessary deaths. To avoid these economic problems—that (...) harm everyone—Sunstein (2002, ix, 7) and others argue “for a kind of cost-benefit state” that .. (shrink)

The International Commission on Radiological Protection — whose regularly updated recommendations are routinely adopted as law throughout the globe — recently issued the first-ever ICRP protections for the environment. These draft 2005 proposals are significant both because they offer the commission’s first radiation protections for any non-human parts of the planet and because they will influence both the quality of radiation risk assessment and environmental protection, as well as the global costs of nuclear-weapons cleanup, reactor decommissioning and radioactive waste management. (...) This piece argues that the 2005 recommendations are scientifically and ethically flawed, or gray, in at least three respects: first, in largely ignoring scientific journals while employing mainly “gray literature;” second, in relying on non-transparent dose estimates and models, rather than on actual radiation measurements; and third, in ignoring classical ethical constraints on acceptable radiation risk. (shrink)

Many scientists, businessmen, and government regulators believe that the criteria for acceptable societal risk are too stringent. Those who subscribe to this belief often accept the view which I call the probability-threshold position. Proponents of this stance maintain that society ought to ignore very small risks, i.e., those causing an average annual probability of fatality of less than 10–6.After examining the three major views in the risk-evaluation debate, viz., the probability-threshold position, the zero-risk position, and the weighted-risk position, I focus (...) on the arguments for the first of these views, since it is the position which currently undergirds most public policy (especially in the U.S.) regarding acceptable risk. After analyzing Arrow's argument from decision theory, Comar's and Gibson's argument from ontology, and Starr's and Whipple's argument from epistemology, I conclude that these defenses of the probability-threshold position err in a variety of ways. Most commonly, they fail because they tacitly accept the assumption that magnitude of probability, alone, provides a sufficient condition for judging the acceptability of a given risk. In the light of these errors, I suggest that it might be more desirable for risk assessors, decision theorists, and policymakers to weight various risk-cost-benefit parameters according to alternative ethical criteria, rather than to evaluate risks solely in terms of mathematical considerations. (shrink)

After giving a brief account of human rights, the paper investigates five contemporary attacks on them. All of the attacks come from two contemporary proponents of the cost-benefit state, attorney Cass Sunstein and philosopher Larry Laudan. These attacks may be called, respectively, the rationality, objectivity, permission, voluntariness, and comparativism claims. Laudan's and Sunstein's rationality claim (RC) ist that only policy decisions passing cost-benefit tests are rational. Their objectivity presupposition (OP) is that only acute, deterministic threats to life are objective. Sunstein’s (...) permission claim (PC) is that regulators are merely permitted, 3 not required, to take distributive and human rights concerns into account. Sunstein’s 3 voluntariness claim (VC) is that the consent of potential victims is not relevant to government regulations about risks and benefits. Laudan’s comparativism claim 3 (CC) is that there are no rules of thumb, no precomparative norms like human rights, for assessing theory choice in policy science. The paper analyzes each of these claims, shows how they undercut human rights, and argues that each of them errs. (shrink)

On August 22, 2005 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued proposed new regulations for radiation releases from the planned permanent U.S. nuclear-waste repository in Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The goal of the new standards is to provide public-health protection for the next million years — even though everyone admits that the radioactive wastes will leak. Regulations now guarantee individual and equal protection against all radiation exposures above the legal limit. Instead E.P.A. recommended different radiation exposure-limits for different time periods. It also (...) recommended using only the arithmetic mean of the dose distribution, to assess regulatory compliance during one time period, but using only the median dose to assess compliance during another period. This piece argues that these two changes — in exposure-limits and in methods of assessing regulatory compliance — have at least four disturbing consequences. The changes would threaten equal protection, ignore the needs of the most vulnerable, allow many fatal exposures, and sanction scientifically flawed dose calculations. (shrink)

: Scientists are divided on the status of hypothesis H that low doses of ionizing radiation (under 20 rads) cause hormetic (or non-harmful) effects. Military and industrial scientists tend to accept H, while medical and environmental scientists tend to reject it. Proponents of the strong programme claim this debate shows that uncertain science can be clarified only by greater attention to the social values in(integral)uencing it. While they are in part correct, this paper argues that methodological analyses (not merely attention (...) to social values) also can help clarify uncertain science. The paper analyzes five measurement uncertainties, as well as seven methodological value judgments, relevant to H. Using criteria of internal and external consistency, as well as predictive power, it argues that metascience also helps resolve this debate. And if so, then value-laden, policy-relevant science may need, not only more attention to social values in order to resolve and to clarify disputes, but also more conceptual and methodological analyses of science. (This paper suggests what such methodological analyses might be like and uses the case of low-dose risks from radiation to illustrate its points, while a companion paper ("Chemical Hormesis, Conceptual Clarification, and the Warrant for Policy-Driven Science") in this same issue of POS suggests what such conceptual analyses might be like and uses the case of low-dose risks from chemicals to illustrate its points.) If this paper's thesis holds in the very politicized "hard case" of radiation hormesis, then it suggests that the metascientists may be right about what is also often necessary to clarify scientific disputes. (shrink)

Following the recommendations of the US National Academy of Sciences and the mandates of the 1987 Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act, the US Department of Energy has proposed Yucca Mountain, Nevada as the site of the world's first permanent repository for high-level nuclear waste. The main justification for permanent disposal (as opposed to above-ground storage) is that it guarantees safety by means of waste isolation. This essay argues, however, that considerations of equity (safer for whom?) undercut the safety rationale. The (...) article surveys some prima facie arguments for equity in the distribution of radwaste risks and then evaluates four objections that are based, respectively, on practicality, compensation for risks, scepticism about duties to future generations, and the uranium criterion. The conclusion is that, at least under existing regulations and policies, permanent waste disposal is highly questionable, in part, because it fails to distribute risk equitably or to compensate, in full, for this inequity. (shrink)

Neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism affect one-eighth of all U.S. newborns. Yet scientists, accessing the same data and using Bradford-Hill guidelines, draw different conclusions about the causes of these disorders. They disagree about the pesticide-harm hypothesis, that typical United States prenatal pesticide exposure can cause neurodevelopmental damage. This article aims to discover whether apparent scientific disagreement about this hypothesis might be partly attributable to questionable interpretations of the Bradford-Hill causal guidelines. Key scientists, who claim to employ Bradford-Hill causal guidelines, yet (...) fail to accept the pesticide-harm hypothesis, fall into errors of trimming the guidelines, requiring statistically-significant data, and ignoring semi-experimental evidence. However, the main scientists who accept the hypothesis appear to commit none of these errors. Although settling disagreement over the pesticide-harm hypothesis requires extensive analysis, this article suggests that at least some conflicts may arise because of questionable interpretations of the guidelines. (shrink)

Although we are likely unaware of it, in one troubling respect nearly all of us today wear the ring of Gyges. Because we are “invisible,” we use the ring to harm others with impunity. What is our ring of Gyges? It is our use/release of epigenetically toxic environmental pollutants (ETEP), such as endocrine disruptors, metals, and some pesticides. For developmentally/pre- and-postnatally-exposed children, ETEP often cause heritable gene-expression changes, developmental toxicity (DT) that increases later-life disease/dysfunction/death, including asthma/allergy, cancer, cardiovascular disease, depression, (...) diabetes, hypertension, immune/precocious autoimmune diseases, infertility, neuro-developmental/neuro-degenerative diseases, obesity, osteoporosis, puberty, and schizophrenia.Yet, like Gyges, we offenders are “invisible” in at least two senses: (i) invisible before the law, because current regulations do not prohibit ETEP exposures able to cause DT; (ii) invisible as perpetrators, because most child-DT harms appear later in life. This paper (1) uses ETEP and DT to explain how we cause severe, hidden, pollution harms to children and future generations, (2) argues that no major ethical theory can justify allowing avoidable ETEP, and (3) shows that we have justice-based duties to help stop avoidable ETEP exposures, because, to varying degrees, we help cause ETEP and profit from them. Finally, the paper (4) answers objections to (3). (shrink)

We examine the evolution of the concept of stability in community ecology, arguing that biologists have moved from an emphasis on biotic communities characterized by static balance, to one of dynamic balance (returning to equilibrium after perturbation), to the current concept of stability as persistence. Using Wimsatt's (1987) analysis of how false models can often lead to better ones, we argue that failed attempts to link complexity with stability have significant heuristic value for community ecologists. Nevertheless, we argue that, (A) (...) because there is no common characteristic that stability terms presuppose, community ecology might be better served by abandoning the concept of stability and by employing instead specific terms such as 'persistence', 'resistance', and 'variability'. (B) The current emphasis (of stability terms) on persistence of species provides little basis for explaining possible mechanisms that might account for persistence. (shrink)

Only ten to twelve percent of Americans would voluntarily live within a mile of a nuclear plant or hazardous waste facility. But industry spokespersons claim that such risk aversion represents ignorance and paranoia, and they lament that citizen protests have delayed valuable projects and increased their costs. Who is right? In _Risk and Rationality_, Kristin Shrader-Frechette argues that neither charges of irresponsible endangerment nor countercharges of scientific illiteracy frame the issues properly. She examines the debate over methodological norms for (...) risk evaluation and finds analysts arrayed in a spectrum. Points of view extend from cultural relativists who believe that any risk can be justified to naive positivists who believe that risk evaluation can be objective, neutral, and value free. Both camps, she argues, are wrong, because risk evaluation as a social process is rational and objective, even though all risk-evaluation rules are value-laden. Shrader-Frechette defends a middle position called "scientific proceduralism." She shows why extremist views are unreliable, reveals misconceptions underlying current risk-evaluation methods and strategies, and sketches the reforms needed to set hazard assessment and risk evaluation on a publicly defensible foundation. These reforms involve mathematical, economic, ethical, and legal procedures. They constitute a new paradigm for assessment when acceptance of public hazards is rational, recognizing that laypersons are often more rational in their evaluation of societal risks than either experts or governments have acknowledged. Such reforms would provide citizens with more influence in risk decisions and focus on mediating ethical conflicts, rather than seeking to impose the will of experts. Science, she argues, need not preclude democracy. (shrink)

Through case studies that highlight the type of information that is seldom reported in the news, Faces of Environmental Racism exposes the type and magnitude of environmental racism, both domestic and international. The essays explore the justice of current environmental practices, asking such questions as whether cost-benefit analysis is an appropriate analytic technique and whether there are alternate routes to sustainable development in the South.

Through case studies that highlight the type of information that is seldom reported in the news, Faces of Environmental Racism exposes the type and magnitude of environmental racism, both domestic and international. The essays explore the justice of current environmental practices, asking such questions as whether cost-benefit analysis is an appropriate analytic technique and whether there are alternate routes to sustainable development in the South.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Environmental Justice: Creating Equality, Reclaiming DemocracyAvner De-Shalit (bio)Environmental Justice: Creating Equality, Reclaiming Democracy, by Kristin Shrader-Frechette. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. 2002. Pp. 269 including index. ISBN: 0-19-515203-4.At the very last page of her book Kristin Shrader-Frechette writes: "We fail to recognize that unless we are the agents of democracy and social reform, there will be neither democracy nor social reform." This is such (...) a short sentence, and yet it is so important. Shrader-Frechette writes this book in order for us the readers to be moved both philosophically and politically speaking. It is a Socratic way of shocking the student, and causing her to reflect upon the way she has conceived things, the way she has interpreted the world. This is not an easy book to read—it is more like watching a violent film: it tells us about greediness, cruelty, misery, cynicism, and the like. But just like watching a good film, after reading the book one cannot remain indifferent.This book, then, is not a typical neutral piece of philosophy or social science. Shrader-Frechette has an agenda on her mind, and she claims that not only is it wrong not to do something to stop environmental injustice, but in fact people have a duty to be active, politically speaking (see especially [End Page 140] pp. 195-7). Indeed, it is about time environmental philosophers realize that they have a social obligation not to remain unconcerned. Their first weapon is their philosophical tools, which they should employ to reveal and criticize what is going on. In this case, for example, Shrader-Frechette not only describes many cases of environmental injustice, but she also eloquently analyzes the arguments that are used by those opposing policies that are meant to rectify environmental disadvantages. Her position is unequivocal: environmental injustice is wrong because it is immoral, and because it discriminates against people, often the more vulnerable. Environmental injustice is defended by arguments which are philosophically flawed and morally repugnant. However, there are growing cases of environmental injustice because there are strong interests behind them, and because the more powerful can exploit the vulnerability of those marginalized by society. The reader can hear the echo of the French novelist Emile Zola's famous article, apropos of the Dreyfus affair: "J'accuse."What is 'environmental justice'? Often goods (e.g., cheaper electricity or faster cars) are manufactured with an environmental cost (pollution). Obviously, one relevant question is whether we need these goods. Let us assume that society decides we do. Sometimes this production ends up in severe injustice. Sometimes only the rich enjoy the benefits (e.g., faster cars) while the entire population pays the cost (more air pollution, more noise). Sometimes it is the case that society in general enjoys the benefits (e.g., cheaper electricity). Nevertheless, only a small group bears the cost.Why is the cost so unevenly distributed? First, pollution and hazardous waste must be treated by professionals so it is transferred to, and concentrated in several locations to be treated. This exposes the populations that live there to very high levels of pollution. These people, then, face risks to their health and well-being, which other people do not have to face.Furthermore, when this happens house prices in the area usually fall, and these people are trapped there: so sharp is the fall in house pricing in their area that they cannot move to another, cleaner, or safer place, because whatever price they will get for their houses won't allow them to buy a decent house in cleaner areas. Once the process has started, even more pollution is attracted to this place. This is partly due to market forces: buying burial space for hazardous waste becomes very cheap in these locations, and therefore more and more firms use these locations for the burial [End Page 141] of hazardous waste. However, there is a second reason for this: it seems that the authorities and committees that decide where to send the waste to, are formed by middle class people who are less likely to live in those locations. It is an empirical fact... (shrink)

A leading international expert on environmental issues, Shrader-Frechette brings a new standard of rigor to philosophical discussions of environmental justice in her latest work. Observing that environmental activists often value environmental concerns over basic human rights, she points out the importance of recognising that minority groups and the poor in general are frequently the biggest victims of environmental degradation, a phenomenon with serious social and political implications that the environmental movement has failed to adequately address. She argues for their equal (...) rights to 'environmental justice' and maintains that they should not have to bear most of the weight of the burdens of pollution and resource depletion. Advocating a greater awareness on the part of professionals in a position to help these victims, Shrader-Frechette proposes a more equitable distribution of environmental resources and, in doing so, makes an important contribution to the fields of environmental ethics and applied philosophy. (shrink)

In this book Shrader-Frechette reveals how politicians, campaign contributors, and lobbyists--and their power over media, advertising, and public relations--have conspired to cover up environmental disease and death.

Who is right? In Risk and Rationality, Kristin Shrader-Frechette argues that neither charges of irresponsible endangerment nor countercharges of scientific illiteracy frame the issues properly.

This is the first book on practical philosophy of science and how to practically evaluate scientific findings that have life-and-death consequences. Showing how to uncover scores of scientific flaws -- typically used by special interests who try to justify their deadly pollution -- this book aims to liberate the many potential victims of environmentally-induced disease and death.

Neoclassical economists have been telling us for years that if we behave in egoistic, individualistic ways, the invisible hand of the market will guide us to efficient and sustainable futures. Many contemporary Greens also have been assuring us that if we behave in holistic ways, the invisible hand of ecology will guide us to health and sustainable futures. This essay argues that neither individualism nor holism will provide environmental sustainability. There is no invisible hand, either in economics or in ecology. (...) Humans have no guaranteed tenure in the biosphere. Likewise there is no philosophical quick fix for environmental problems, either through the ethical individualism of Feinberg, Frankena, and Regan, or through the ecological holism of Callicott and Leopold. The correct path is more complex and tortuous than either of these ways. The essay argues that the best way to reach a sustainable environmental future probably is through a middle path best described as "hierarchical holism.". (shrink)

Because of the problems associated with ecological concepts, generalizations, and proposed general theories, applied ecology may require a new "logic" of explanation characterized neither by the traditional accounts of confirmation nor by the logic of discovery. Building on the works of Grunbaum, Kuhn, and Wittgenstein, we use detailed descriptions from research on conserving the Northern Spotted Owl, a case typical of problem solving in applied ecology, to (1) characterize the method of case studies; (2) survey its strengths; (3) summarize and (...) respond to its shortcomings; and (4) investigate and defend its underlying "logic". (shrink)