Through the MACROSCOPE

Through the MACROSCOPE:
the legacy of H.T. Odum

In the world of science that we live in there are two kinds of people: Odumites and others. This is not simply an observation by us or the others whom we believe would universally agree, but also a statement often made by many other ecologists and scientists with only an indirect connection to Odum. We might add, even our own students would agree with the observation. It is usually followed with the explanatory statement that “ ... almost everyone who has been touched by the ideas and especially the presence of H.T. Odum was never quite the same again”. His classes were often so intellectually exciting that we could think of almost nothing else.

Where even his simplest statements would ripple through our intellect causing waves of excitement and discussions that would carry us well into the night. Many of us felt that we were standing next to some huge dynamo, with our hair standing on end from the induced currents. Somehow, after being immersed in HT's ideas, theories, and philosophies we felt as if we stood on a taller hill, looking farther with a broader overview of the surrounding landscape. Most of us still feel that way. So we often used the term "Odumite" to describe those of us who had been touched by what we saw as the genius of H.T. Odum.

On the other hand, those who have expressed almost open hostility to the ideas and theories of HT often used the term, "Odumite" in a derogatory manner. In fact, HT disliked the term, because it made him, instead of his ideas, the center. As he stated on numerous occasions, ideas are bigger than an individual and when they are identified with an individual they can easily be dismissed ... not because the ideas are wrong, but because the individual is not well liked. When people focus on the individual instead of the idea, it becomes an issue of personalities and egos, instead of discussion and collegial discourse. So it was often easy to brand those of us who were "followers" of H.T. Odum as Odumites, and the belief in Odum’s ideas as "Odumania" (see for example Månsson and McGlade, 1993). In somewhat of a reverse sting, some ecologists have identified "systems ecology" as the culprit that has moved ecology away from an organismal orientation and therefore its underpinnings in the dual realities of natural history and community ecology. Since H.T. Odum was one of the main proponents of systems ecology, his ideas were blasphemous to them and those of us that believed them were Odumites, not to be trusted in a world where reductionism and small scale biology held rein. To most of us however, systems ecology was not the problem, but the solution. In the words of HT... "If the bewildering complexity of human knowledge developed in the twentieth century is to be retained and well used, unifying concepts are needed to consolidate the understanding of systems of many kinds and to simplify the teaching of general principles." (Odum, 1994).

Ecology should be, at least in our view, not just about species and populations but about systems and about synthesis, about how systems of different scales operate along common principles and are constrained by common energetics, and about how plant and animal populations are largely determined over space and time by environmental factors. It is through ecology and an understanding of the systems, hierarchies, and dynamic behavior of the natural world that we might gain an understanding of our place within it. Nature is about all levels of organization and to us it is problematic that ecology is often taught within biology departments, where species-or population-oriented biologists represent the highest level of complexity. Odum was a systems ecologist, no doubt. He worked tirelessly throughout his career to firmly establish it as a science, but more than that, to expand and advance the science. Believing that diversity begets innovation, he embraced the approaches of others (more so in his later life) suggesting that the field was stronger as a result of the diversity of approaches and systems languages of others.

Peculiarly, some ecologists said that he was not a believer in Darwin’s theories. In fact Odum believed in natural selection operating at every level all the time and relentlessly. He was perhaps the strongest Darwinian we knew.

His Darwinian perspective even extended to his own ideas, for he said on more than one occasion “let the future sort out my good ideas from those that are not so good”. He, more than most, worked throughout his career orchestrating several interests into a complex symphony of field ecology, experimental measurement, theory, and policy. Over the span of 50 plus years, this symphony resulted in hundreds of publications that did not always fit neatly into academic departments or disciplines. Beginning with ecological studies of Silver Springs and the coral reefs of Eniwetok Atoll in the Pacific, and continuing with the Bays of Texas’ Gulf coast, the Luquillo Forest of Puerto Rico, the saltmarshes of North Carolina’s coast and finally the cypress wetlands of Florida, Odum’s ecology was always big scale, experimental, and measurement oriented. These studies yielded however, theory, and a macroscopic, systems approach oriented toward understanding the “whole” and placing humanity smack in the middle. There was no question in his mind that humans were part of these systems or that humans ultimately controlled them...the only question was, could Odum convince the rest of humanity (especially ecologists) that this was so.

In many respects the division of H.T. Odum’s life work into several sections having different subject content is artificial at best, and in fact might be the antitheses of what he would have wished. Throughout his life, there was a continuum of thought, research, scientific inquiry, and generation of theory along several threads that were never abandoned or left behind. His life’s work was a tapestry of projects, both large and small, woven together into a collective whole that was far greater than the sum of its individual parts. At times Odum worked with whole ecosystems taking measurements and developing new techniques for measuring production, respiration and the transfer of energy through trophic networks. Even so, as Scott Nixon has noted, his knowledge of the taxonomy of individual species was often profound. At other times he worked with microcosms and simulation models, trying to emulate the larger world in aggregate. He was an engineer, when necessary, devising his own instruments when need arose. At times he was an artist, conjuring up diagrams and pictures to get his points across when words were not enough. In all cases, Odum was striving for clarity out of the “the bewildering complexity of human knowledge developed in the twentieth century...,” trying to ‘see’ the essence of nature and man-nature interactions, the pervasiveness of energy relations, and to develop understanding.

He had a single-minded drive for understanding. It is impossible to recall a time when he was at a loss for a “systems” observation as to why something was as it was nor a time when he could not find something positive to say to a junior colleague or caught without an encouraging word for one of his students These are the things that most shaped our image of H.T. Odum, as scientist and teacher. These represent the legacy that he left us.