ECOLOGICAL ENGINEERING Editorial Scales of ecological engineering

Ecological engineering operates in those scales of size and time where most people do not believe there are many scientific principles. Because humans are in this scale, they see so much detail that they can not see the organization and often seek non-scientific theories for what happens. Others, including me, believe that all scales of size and time operate according to the same common designs with common principles. By this view, the noisy detail we see around us is the trial and error process of finding what works best, and what works best can be found from scientific principles. Trial and error efforts to find the maximum performance are aided by variation and choices provided by the dynamic oscillations of the smaller scales. Horgan (1995) quotes many scientists who believe some scales have more complexity than others. My view is that all scales have the same complexity, but that humans perceive less as they look towards smaller or larger scales than their own realm. Does the ratio of variance to the mean tend to be constant? Progress in science has been faster at the scales where overview models were encouraged because the complexity was less visible. Mathematical models of ecosystems started with plankton ecosystems where i