Introduction

Abstract

A colleague¹ stated recently in an ecological analysis that he had studied some parts of the population problem intensively and that therefore his findings were based on definite facts; others had been studied by him relatively little, so that on these he offered suggestive ideas based on insufficient evidence; and still others he had barely studied so that he gave in these cases unbased theories. This is a good and sincere statement which should serve to introduce all treatises on the theory of animal populations.

“Everyone who writes a textbook on any branch of experimental science must set down as many wrong statements as right; he cannot carry out most experiments himself, he must rely on the testimony of others and often take probability for truth. Thus a compendium is a monument of the time when the facts were collected and it must be renewed and rewritten again and again. But while fresh discoveries are accepted and a few chapters improved, others perpetrate misleading experiments and erroneous deductions.”

from The Theory of Colour, by Goethe.