Many biologists, when they turn to philosophical (epistemological or ontological) questions, abandon the standards of accuracy that, at least in the layman's view, ought to govern their discourse as scientists. Simberloff's argument forms an unusually flagrant example of this practice. If ecology does in fact rely on incompatible models, I that fact may suggest interesting problems about scientific discovery and the structure of scientific theories. If such discussion is to be useful, however, some of Simberloff's misunderstandings and misinformation should be cleared away. The following comments are intended in this spirit.
The villain of the piece, allegedly, is 'Greek idealism,' which is also elided to 'idealism' simpliciter. Simberloff introduces this concept via a statement: "Idealism views the material objects of the world as imperfect reflections of fundamental unchanging essences or ideals," which, if we read 'forms' or 'ideas' for the misleading 'ideals', is probably acceptable as a report of Plato's view in the middle period of his career 2 (though not of course of the doctrines of many other idealists, such as Fichte, Hegel or Berkeley, for example). But the term 'idealism' is in no reasonable sense applicable to Aristotle. Nor, of course, is 'idealism' characteristic of Greek thought as such, as Simberloff's argument suggests. Was Democritus an idealist? (Guthrie, 1965).
Moreover, Simberloff equates 'idealism' not only with 'typology,' that typical term of abuse, but with 'essentialism' and 'holism,' and links it closely to 'determinism' and sometimes, in general, causal reasoning. Yet these concepts by no means automatically belong together. With due caution, 'essentialism' may reasonably be applied to Aristotelian realism, as well as to Platonic idealism. 'Holism,' too, is neutral with respect to a distinction between 'idealism' and its contrary: witness the philosophy of Spinoza (Hampshire, 1971). And