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| The History of “an Old Horse”： Scientific and Cultural Roots of the Ecosystem Concept |
| Donald Worster |
| School of History， Renmin University of China， Beijing 100872 |
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Abstract The word “ecosystem” is an important one for our time， appearing both as a scientific concept and as a loose metaphor applied to places， businesses， politics， communities， and various social phenomena. Few people， even among the sciences， seem to be aware， however， that the word has been controversial among those who use it most—ecologists—or that it incorporates radically different world views. “Eco” suggests ecology and evolution， the messy indeterminate world of Charles Darwin， while “system” comes from the 18th century Enlightenment and its mechanistic， orderly worldview typified by the physicist Isaac Newton. This dual heritage has given the word much ambiguity and inconsistency. It was coined in the 1930s， spread into popular usage during the 1950s， and today is commonly assumed to mean something concrete and real. It is the modern word people assume sums up nature. But its tangled history suggests that our perception of nature is neither simple， unified， nor completely coherent.
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Received: 16 April 2020
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2020, Vol. 59 
