Ecologists have long endeavored to improve ecologi-cal literacy. This goal goes beyond informing stu-dents about environmental issues: one must excite theirinterest in ecological science, regardless of whether ornot they intend to pursue the more advanced technicaland mathematical education that modern ecologyrequires (Golley 1998). The challenge is to motivatepeople to tackle difficult ecological problems. Fiftyyears ago, G Evelyn Hutchinson (1953) observed that,while students did not hesitate to dive into complicatedactivities concerned with “electronic amplifiers andwith the explosive combustion of hydrocarbons”, theytraditionally viewed the majority of complex activitiesas boring duties. “What we have to do”, Hutchinsonwrote, “is to show by example that a very large numberof diversified, complicated, and often extremely diffi-cult constructive activities are capable of giving enor-mous pleasure”. The kind of pleasure that Hutchinsonwas thinking of involved the formulation of theory,discovery, and problem-solving. Repairing the bios-phere and the human societies within it, he believed,ought to be as much fun as repairing the family car.While people today are better informed about environ-mental problems , engaging students in ecologicalresearch and conveying what ecology is about to thepublic is still challenging because of the complexity ofthe science.I will draw on historical examples to illustrate ways ofthinking that are characteristic of an ecologicalapproach to the study of nature. My list is by no meanscomplete. I touch only lightly on the classics of the eco-logical canon, which are discussed elsewhere (Real andBrown 1991; Keller and Golley 2000). Instead, I includesome lesser known examples from medical science tohighlight different contexts in which thinking ecologi-cally has been important. Students should appreciatethat this kind of thinking integrates methods derivedfrom many fields of science and has a particular perspec-tive that has evolved over decades of careful observationand thought. They may not realize, for instance, thatecology has roots in Newtonian science, or that someecologists esteem Louis Pasteur because of his ability tothink ecologically. This article offers a sampling of differ-ent forms of problem solving, starting with the prehistoryof ecology in the 19th century, to illustrate a few of thekey components of that perspective and some of theimportant generalizations that have resulted from think-ing ecologically. The components highlighted here are:(1) the drive for a general theory or unifying worldview,culminating in the concept of the ecosystem; (2) the dis-covery of the role of history in explaining species diver-sity and distribution; (3) the discovery of the complexityof species relationships; (4) the application of logico-mathematical arguments as heuristic devices (rules ofthumb or guidelines that do not guarantee optimal solu-tions); and (5) the recognition that how organismsbehave is dependent on context.367© The Ecological Society of America www.frontiersinecology.orgREVIEWS REVIEWS REVIEWSConveying the intellectual challenge ofecology: an historical perspectiveSharon KingslandThe roots of ecology are historically extremely diverse, with contributions from many fields of science. Asampling of ways of thinking ecologically, ranging from the early 19th to the early 20th century, revealsthe richness of ecological science. By examining historical examples from biogeography, natural history,the science of energy, and biomedical sciences, we can appreciate the many different contexts in whichecological thinking has evolved, whether as part of larger projects to systematize and unify knowledge ofthe world, or in response to particular problems that were solved by taking a fresh approach. It is impor-tant, when educating students and the public, to convey this diversity of ecological thought and the natureof ecology as an integrative discipline. Front Ecol Environ 2004; 2(7): 367–374Department of History of Science and Technology, Johns HopkinsUniversity, Baltimore MD ([email protected])In a nutshell:• Historical examples illustrate some of the key features that con-stitute ecological ways of thinking, which combine general the-ory, logical argument, and an understanding of how environ-mental and historical context affects the behavior of organismsand the distribution of species• Ecological thinking, with its roots in the quantitative ideals ofNewtonian science, has helped to elucidate the broad cycles ofmatter and energy that govern systems• Solving problems in evolutionary biology, epidemiology, andbiomedicine have depended on adopting an ecological perspec-tive• Awakening students to the intellectual challenge of ecologicalresearch and teaching them to integrate knowledge from differ-ent fields begins by exposing them to diverse forms of creativeecological thinking across the spectrum of the life sciencesThe intellectual challenge of ecology S Kingsland Scientific natural historyEcology in the early 20th century was often described as“scientific natural history” (Elton 1927). Although thatdefinition now seems old-fashioned, such a descriptionremains useful in that it reminds us of how innovative itonce was to combine natural history and science (or, as itwas then called, natural philosophy). Ecological thinkingemerged in the early 19th century, at the intersection ofnatural history and natural philosophy. The expression“natural history” meant the description of nature (pri-marily taxonomy), while “natural philosophy” generallyreferred to the elucidation of the laws of nature. Naturalhistory was transformed in the early 19th century by mak-ing it also a “philosophical” inquiry – that is, a search forthe laws of the history and distribution of species and,within the science of anatomy, a search for the laws ofstructure (Rehbock 1983). The term “scientific naturalhistory” denotes this important intellectual transforma-tion, which set the stage for the development of ecologi-cal science later that century. Behind this transformation was the authority ofNewtonian science. In the 18th and early 19th centuries,under the impetus of scientists such as Antoine Lavoisier(1743–1794) and Pierre-Simon Laplace (1749–1827),Newtonian ideals of exact science were extended intochemistry, the life sciences, and even into social science(Hankins 1985). Analytic reasoning and precise measure-ment were the