Was Henry David Thoreau a Good Naturalist? An Approach for Assessing Data from Historical Natural History Records. (24th August 2022)
- Record Type:
- Journal Article
- Title:
- Was Henry David Thoreau a Good Naturalist? An Approach for Assessing Data from Historical Natural History Records. (24th August 2022)
- Main Title:
- Was Henry David Thoreau a Good Naturalist? An Approach for Assessing Data from Historical Natural History Records
- Authors:
- Primack, Richard B
Miller-Rushing, Abraham J
Miller, Tara K - Abstract:
- Abstract: Ecologists are increasingly combining historical observations made by naturalists with modern observations to detect the ecological effects of climate change. This use of historical observations raises the following question: How do we know that historical data are appropriate to use to answer current ecological questions? In the present article, we address this question for environmental philosopher Henry David Thoreau, author of Walden . Should we trust his observations? We qualitatively and quantitatively evaluate Thoreau's observations using a three-step framework: We assess the rigor, accuracy, and utility of his observations to investigate changes in plants and animals over time. We conclude that Thoreau was an accurate observer of nature and a reliable scientist. More importantly, we describe how this simple three-step approach could be used to assess the accuracy of other scientists and naturalists.
- Is Part Of:
- BioScience. Volume 72:Number 10(2022)
- Journal:
- BioScience
- Issue:
- Volume 72:Number 10(2022)
- Issue Display:
- Volume 72, Issue 10 (2022)
- Year:
- 2022
- Volume:
- 72
- Issue:
- 10
- Issue Sort Value:
- 2022-0072-0010-0000
- Page Start:
- 1018
- Page End:
- 1027
- Publication Date:
- 2022-08-24
- Subjects:
- climate change -- Henry David Thoreau -- natural history data -- naturalist -- phenology
Life sciences -- Periodicals
Life sciences -- Research -- Periodicals
Life sciences -- United States -- Periodicals
Life sciences -- Government policy -- United States -- Periodicals
Biology -- Periodicals
Biotechnology industries -- Periodicals
570 - Journal URLs:
- http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org ↗
http://www.aibs.org/bioscience ↗
http://www.bioone.org/bioone/?request=get-journals-list&issn=0006-3568 ↗
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/aibs/bio ↗
http://www.jstor.org/journals/00063568.html ↗
http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/ ↗
http://firstsearch.oclc.org ↗ - DOI:
- 10.1093/biosci/biac063 ↗
- Languages:
- English
- ISSNs:
- 0006-3568
- Deposit Type:
- Legaldeposit
- View Content:
- Available online (eLD content is only available in our Reading Rooms) ↗
- Physical Locations:
- British Library DSC - 2089.611400
British Library DSC - BLDSS-3PM
British Library HMNTS - ELD Digital store - Ingest File:
- 23984.xml