Abstract Social ecology. History of formation and current state
Social ecology is a young scientific discipline. In fact, the emergence and development of social ecology reflects the growing interest of sociology in environmental problems, that is, a sociological approach to human ecology is born, which first led to the emergence of human ecology, or humane ecology, and later - social ecology.
According to the definition of one of today's leading ecologists, Yu. Odum, "ecology is an interdisciplinary field of knowledge, the science of the structure of multi-level systems in nature, society, and their interconnection."
Researchers have been interested in environmental issues for a long time. Already in the early stages of the formation of human society, links were found between the conditions in which people live and the characteristics of their health. The works of the great physician of antiquity Hippocrates (c. 460-370 BC) contain numerous evidence that environmental factors, lifestyle have a decisive influence on the formation of bodily (constitution) and mental (temperament) properties of a person.
In the 17th century medical geography appeared - a science that studies the influence of the natural and social conditions of various territories on the health of the people inhabiting them. Its founder was the Italian physician Bernardino Ramazzini (1633-1714).
This indicates that an ecological approach to human life existed before. According to N.F. Reimers (1992), human ecology arose almost simultaneously with classical biological ecology, although under a different name. Over the years, it has been formed in two directions: the actual ecology of man as an organism and social ecology. The American scientist J. Buce notes that the line "human geography - human ecology - sociology" originated in the works of the French philosopher and sociologist Auguste Comte (1798-1857) in 1837 and was further developed by D.S. Mill (1806-1873) and G. Spencer (1820-1903).
Ecologist N.F. Reimers gave the following definition: "human socio-economic ecology is a scientific field that studies the general structural-spatial, functional and temporal laws of the relationship between the planet's biosphere and the anthroposystem (its structural levels from all of humanity to the individual), as well as the integral patterns of the internal biosocial organization of the human society." That is, everything comes down to the same classical formula “organism and environment”, the only difference is that the “organism” is the whole of humanity as a whole, and the environment is all natural and social processes.
The development of social ecology begins after the First World War, at the same time the first attempts to define its subject appear. One of the first to do this was McKenzie, a well-known representative of classical human ecology.
Social ecology arose and developed under the influence of bioecology. Since technological progress constantly disrupts the biotic and abiotic environment of a person, it inevitably leads to an imbalance in the biological ecosystem. Therefore, along with the development of civilization with fatal inevitability, it is accompanied by an increase in the number of diseases. Any further development of society becomes fatal for a person and calls into question the existence of civilization. That is why in modern society they talk about "diseases of civilization."
The development of social ecology accelerated after the World Sociological Congress (Evian, 1966), which made it possible at the next World Sociological Congress (Varna, 1970) to create a research committee of the International Sociological Association on social ecology. Thus, the existence of social ecology as a branch of sociology was recognized, the prerequisites were created for its faster development and a clearer definition of its subject.
Factors that influenced the emergence and formation of social ecology:
1. The emergence of new concepts in ecology (biocenosis, ecosystem, biosphere) and the study of man as a social being.
2. The threat to the ecological balance and its violation arise as a result of a complex relationship between three sets of systems: natural, technical and social
Subject of social ecology
According to N.M. Mammadova, social ecology studies the interaction of society and the natural environment.
S.N. Solomina believes that the subject of social ecology is the study of global problems of mankind: the problems of energy resources, environmental protection, the elimination of mass starvation and dangerous diseases, the development of the wealth of the ocean.
Laws of social ecology
Social ecology as a science should establish scientific laws, evidence of objectively existing, necessary and essential connections between phenomena, the signs of which are their general nature, constancy and the ability to foresee them.
H. F. Reimers, on the basis of private laws established by such scientists as B. Commoner, P. Danero, A. Turgo and T. Malthus, points to 10 laws of the "man - nature" system:
I. The rule of historical development of production due to the successive rejuvenation of ecosystems.
2. The law of boomerang, or feedback of interaction between man and the biosphere.
3. Law of irreplaceability of the biosphere.
4. The law of renewal of the biosphere.
5. The law of irreversibility of interaction between man and the biosphere.
6. The rule of measure (degree of possibility) of natural systems.
7. The principle of naturalness.
8. Law of diminishing returns (of nature).
9. The rule of demographic (techno-socio-economic) saturation.
10. The rule of accelerated historical development.
When forming the laws of N.F. Reimers proceeds from "general regularities", and thus the laws of social ecology, to one degree or another, contain expressions of these regularities.
CONTROL QUESTIONS FOR HUMAN ECOLOGY
TO PREPARE FOR RESULTS
The development of ecological ideas of people from ancient times to the present day. The emergence and development of ecology as a science.
The term "ecology" was proposed in 1866 by the German zoologist and philosopher E. Haeckel, who, while developing a classification system for biological sciences, discovered that there is no special name for the field of biology that studies the relationship of organisms with the environment. Haeckel also defined ecology as "the physiology of relationships", although "physiology" was understood very broadly - as the study of a wide variety of processes occurring in living nature.
The new term entered the scientific literature rather slowly and began to be used more or less regularly only from the 1900s. As a scientific discipline, ecology was formed in the 20th century, but its prehistory dates back to the 19th, and even to the 18th century. So, already in the works of K. Linnaeus, who laid the foundations of the systematics of organisms, there was an idea of \u200b\u200bthe “economy of nature” - a strict ordering of various natural processes aimed at maintaining a certain natural balance.
In the second half of the 19th century, research that was essentially ecological began to be carried out in many countries, both by botanists and zoologists. So, in Germany, in 1872, the capital work of August Grisebach (1814-1879) was published, who for the first time gave a description of the main plant communities of the entire globe (these works were also published in Russian), and in 1898 - a major summary of Franz Schimper (1856-1901) "Geography of Plants on a Physiological Basis", which provides a lot of detailed information about the dependence of plants on various environmental factors. Another German researcher, Karl Mobius, studying the reproduction of oysters in the shallows (the so-called oyster banks) of the North Sea, proposed the term "biocenosis", which denoted the totality of various living creatures that live in the same territory and are closely interconnected.
The 1920-1940s were very important for the transformation of ecology into an independent science. At this time, a number of books on various aspects of ecology were published, specialized journals began to appear (some of them still exist), and ecological societies arose. But the most important thing is that the theoretical basis of the new science is gradually being formed, the first mathematical models are being proposed, and its own methodology is being developed, which makes it possible to set and solve certain problems.
Formation of social ecology and its subject.
In order to better present the subject of social ecology, one should consider the process of its emergence and formation as an independent branch of scientific knowledge. In fact, the emergence and subsequent development of social ecology was a natural consequence of the ever-increasing interest of representatives of various humanitarian disciplines - sociology, economics, political science, psychology, etc. - to the problems of interaction between man and the environment.
Today, an increasing number of researchers tend to broaden the interpretation of the subject of social ecology. So, according to D.Zh. Markovich, the subject of study of modern social ecology, understood by him as a particular sociology, is the specific relationship between a person and his environment. Based on this, the main tasks of social ecology can be defined as follows: the study of the influence of the environment as a combination of natural and social factors on a person, as well as the influence of a person on the environment, perceived as the framework of human life.
A somewhat different, but not contradictory, interpretation of the subject of social ecology is given by T.A. Akimov and V.V. Haskin. From their point of view, social ecology as part of human ecology is a complex of scientific branches that study the relationship of social structures (starting with the family and other small social groups), as well as the relationship of man with the natural and social environment of their habitat. This approach seems to us more correct, because it does not limit the subject of social ecology to the framework of sociology or any other separate humanitarian discipline, but emphasizes its interdisciplinary nature.
Some researchers, when defining the subject of social ecology, tend to emphasize the role that this young science is called upon to play in harmonizing the relationship of mankind with its environment. According to E. V. Girusov, social ecology should first of all study the laws of society and nature, by which he understands the laws of self-regulation of the biosphere, implemented by man in his life.
The development of general ecology and the formation of social ecology
Social ecology arose at the intersection of sociology, ecology, philosophy and other branches of science, with each of which it closely interacts. In order to determine the position of social ecology in the system of sciences, it must be borne in mind that the word "ecology" means in some cases one of the ecological scientific disciplines, in others - all scientific ecological disciplines. Social ecology is a link between the technical sciences (hydraulic engineering, etc.) and the social sciences (history, jurisprudence, etc.).
The following argumentation is given in favor of the proposed system. There is an urgent need to replace the concept of the hierarchy of sciences with the idea of a circle of sciences. The classification of sciences is usually built on the principle of hierarchy (subordination of some sciences to others) and successive fragmentation (separation, not combination of sciences).
This diagram does not claim to be complete. Transitional sciences (geochemistry, geophysics, biophysics, biochemistry, etc.) are not marked on it, the role of which is extremely important for solving an environmental problem. These sciences contribute to the differentiation of knowledge, cement the entire system, embodying the inconsistency of the processes of "differentiation - integration" of knowledge. The scheme shows the importance of the "connecting" sciences, including social ecology. In contrast to the sciences of the centrifugal type (physics, etc.), they can be called centripetal. These sciences have not yet reached the proper level of development, because in the past insufficient attention was paid to the connections between the sciences, and it is very difficult to study them.
When the knowledge system is built on the principle of hierarchy, there is a danger that some sciences will hinder the development of others, and this is dangerous from an environmental point of view. It is important that the prestige of the sciences of the natural environment should not be lower than the prestige of the sciences of the physicochemical and technical cycles. Biologists and ecologists have accumulated a lot of data that testify to the need for a much more careful, careful attitude to the biosphere than is the case at present. But such an argument weighs only from the standpoint of a separate consideration of branches of knowledge. Science is a connected mechanism, the use of data from some sciences depends on others. If the data of the sciences are in conflict with each other, preference is given to sciences that enjoy great prestige, i.e. at present, the sciences of the physicochemical cycle.
Science should approach the degree of a harmonious system. Such a science will help create a harmonious system of relationships between man and nature and ensure the harmonious development of man himself. Science contributes to the progress of society not in isolation, but together with other branches of culture. Such a synthesis is no less important than the greening of science. Value reorientation is an integral part of the reorientation of the whole society. The attitude to the natural environment as integrity presupposes the integrity of culture, the harmonious connection of science with art, philosophy, etc. Moving in this direction, science will move away from focusing exclusively on technological progress, responding to the deepest demands of society - ethical, aesthetic, as well as those that affect the definition of the meaning of life and the goals of society's development (Gorelov, 2000).
The main directions of development of social ecology
To date, three main areas have emerged in social ecology.
The first direction is the study of the relationship of society with the natural environment at the global level - global ecology. The scientific foundations of this direction were laid by V.I. Vernadsky in the fundamental work "Biosphere", published in 1928. In 1977, a monograph by M.I. Budyko "Global Ecology", but there, mainly climatic aspects are considered. Such topics as resources, global pollution, global cycles of chemical elements, the influence of the Cosmos, the functioning of the Earth as a whole, etc., did not receive proper coverage.
The second direction is the study of the relationship with the natural environment of various groups of the population and society as a whole from the point of view of understanding a person as a social being. Human relations to the social and natural environment are interconnected. K. Marx and F. Engels pointed out that the limited relationship of people to nature determines their limited relationship to each other, and their limited relationship to each other - their limited relationship to nature. This is social ecology in the narrow sense of the word.
The third direction is human ecology. Its subject is a system of relationships with the natural environment of a person as a biological being. The main problem is the purposeful management of the preservation and development of human health, the population, the improvement of Man as a biological species. Here and forecasts of changes in health under the influence of changes in the environment, and the development of standards in life support systems.
Western researchers also distinguish between the ecology of human society - social ecology and human ecology. Social ecology considers the impact on society as a dependent and manageable subsystem of the "nature - society" system. Human ecology - focuses on the person himself as a biological unit.
The history of the emergence and development of ecological ideas of people is rooted in ancient times. Knowledge about the environment and the nature of relationships with it has acquired practical significance since the dawn of the development of the human species.
The process of formation of the labor and social organization of primitive people, the development of their mental and collective activity created the basis for understanding not only the very fact of their existence, but also for an ever greater understanding of the dependence of this existence both on the conditions within their social organization and on external natural conditions. The experience of our distant ancestors was constantly enriched and passed down from generation to generation, helping a person in his daily struggle for life.
The lifestyle of primitive man gave him information about the animals he hunted, and about the suitability or unsuitability of the fruits he collected. Already half a million years ago, human ancestors had a lot of information about the food they obtained by gathering and hunting. At the same time, the use of natural sources of fire for cooking began, the consumer qualities of which improved significantly under heat treatment conditions.
Gradually, mankind accumulated information about the properties of various natural materials, about the possibility of their use for certain purposes. The technical means created by primitive man testify, on the one hand, to the improvement of the production skills and abilities of people, and on the other hand, they are proof of their “knowledge” of the outside world, since any, even the most primitive, tool requires knowledge of the properties of natural objects from its creators , as well as understanding the purpose of the tool itself and familiarity with the methods and conditions for its practical use.
Approximately 750 thousand years ago, people themselves learned how to make a fire, equip primitive dwellings, mastered ways to protect themselves from bad weather and enemies. Thanks to this knowledge, man was able to significantly expand the area of \u200b\u200bhis habitat.
Starting from the 8th millennium BC. e. in Asia Minor, various methods of cultivating the land and growing crops are beginning to be practiced. In the countries of Central Europe, this kind of agrarian revolution took place in the 6-2nd millennium BC. As a result, a large number of people switched to a settled way of life, in which there was an urgent need for deeper observations of the climate, in the ability to predict the change of seasons and weather changes. By the same time, people discovered the dependence of weather phenomena on astronomical cycles.
Awareness of one's dependence on nature, the closest connection with it, played an important role in the formation of the consciousness of primitive and ancient man, refracting in animism, totemism, magic, and mythological representations. The imperfection of the means and methods of cognition of reality prompted people to create a special, more understandable, explainable and predictable, from their point of view, world of supernatural forces, acting as a kind of mediator between a person and the real world. Supernatural entities anthropomorphized by primitive people, in addition to the features of their immediate carriers (plants, animals, inanimate objects), were endowed with features of a human character, they were attributed to the features of human behavior. This gave grounds for primitive people to experience their kinship with the nature around them, a sense of "participation" in it.
The first attempts to streamline the process of cognition of nature, putting it on a scientific basis, began to be made already in the era of the early civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and China. The accumulation of empirical data on the course of various natural processes, on the one hand, and the development of counting systems and the improvement of measurement procedures, on the other, made it possible to predict with increasing accuracy the onset of certain natural disasters (eclipses, eruptions, river floods, droughts, etc.). ), put on a strict planned basis the process of agricultural production. The expansion of knowledge of the properties of various natural materials, as well as the establishment of some key physical laws, made it possible for ancient architects to achieve perfection in the art of creating residential buildings, palaces, temples, as well as household buildings. The monopoly on knowledge allowed the rulers of ancient states to keep masses of people in obedience, to demonstrate the ability to "control" the unknown and unpredictable forces of nature. It is easy to see that at this stage the study of nature had a clearly defined utilitarian orientation.
The greatest progress in the development of scientific ideas about reality fell on the era of antiquity (VIII century BC ¾ V century AD). With its beginning, there was a departure from utilitarianism in the knowledge of nature. This has found its expression, in particular, in the emergence of new areas of its study, not focused on obtaining direct material benefits. People's desire to recreate a consistent picture of the world and realize their place in it began to come to the fore.
One of the main problems that occupied the minds of ancient thinkers was the problem of the relationship between nature and man. The study of various aspects of their interaction was the subject of scientific interests of the ancient Greek researchers Herodotus, Hippocrates, Plato, Eratosthenes and others.
The ancient Greek historian Herodotus (484-425 BC) associated the process of formation of character traits in people and the establishment of a particular political system with the action of natural factors (climate, landscape features, etc.).
The ancient Greek physician Hippocrates (460¾377 BC) taught that it is necessary to treat the patient, taking into account the individual characteristics of the human body and its relationship with the environment. He believed that environmental factors (climate, water and soil conditions, people's lifestyle, laws of the country, etc.) have a decisive influence on the formation of bodily (constitution) and spiritual (temperament) human properties. The climate, according to Hippocrates, also largely determines the features of the national character.
The famous idealist philosopher Plato (428-348 BC) drew attention to the changes (mostly negative) that occur over time in the human environment, and to the impact these changes have on the way people live. Plato did not connect the facts of the degradation of the living environment of a person with the economic activity carried out by him, considering them signs of natural decline, the rebirth of things and phenomena of the material world.
The Roman naturalist Pliny (23¾79 AD) compiled a 37-volume work "Natural History", a kind of encyclopedia of natural science, in which he presented information on astronomy, geography, ethnography, meteorology, zoology and botany. Describing a large number of plants and animals, he also indicated the places of their growth and habitat. Of particular interest is Pliny's attempt to compare man and animals. He drew attention to the fact that instinct dominates in animals in life, and a person acquires everything (including the ability to walk and talk) through learning, through imitation, and also through conscious experience.
Started in the second half of the 2nd c. The decline of the ancient Roman civilization, its subsequent collapse under the pressure of the barbarians and, finally, the establishment of the dominance of dogmatic Christianity in almost the entire territory of Europe led to the fact that the sciences of nature and man experienced a state of deep stagnation for many centuries, without receiving practically any development.
The situation changed with the onset of the Renaissance, the approach of which was heralded by the works of such eminent medieval scholars as Albertus Magnus and Roger Bacon.
The Peru of the German philosopher and theologian Albert of Bolshtedt (Albert the Great) (1206¾1280) owns several natural science treatises. The works "On Alchemy" and "On Metals and Minerals" contain statements about the dependence of climate on the geographical latitude of the place and its position above sea level, as well as on the relationship between the inclination of the sun's rays and the heating of the soil. Here Albert speaks of the origin of mountains and valleys under the influence of earthquakes and floods; considers the Milky Way as a cluster of stars; denies the fact of the impact of comets on the fate and health of people; explains the existence of hot springs by the action of heat coming from the depths of the Earth, etc. In the treatise "On Plants" he analyzes the issues of organography, morphology and physiology of plants, gives facts on the selection of cultivated plants, and expresses the idea of plant variability under the influence of the environment.
The English philosopher and naturalist Roger Bacon (1214-1294) argued that all organic bodies are in their composition various combinations of the same elements and liquids that make up inorganic bodies. Bacon emphasized the role of the sun in the life of organisms, and also drew attention to their dependence on the state of the environment and climatic conditions in a particular habitat. He also spoke of the fact that man, no less than all other organisms, is subject to the influence of climate ¾ of its changes can lead to changes in the bodily organization and characters of people.
The advent of the Renaissance is inextricably linked with the name of the famous Italian painter, sculptor, architect, scientist and engineer Leonardo da Vinci (1452¾1519). He considered the main task of science to establish the laws of natural phenomena, based on the principle of their causal, necessary connection. Studying the morphology of plants, Leonardo was interested in the influence exerted on their structure and functioning by light, air, water and the mineral parts of the soil. The study of the history of life on Earth led him to the conclusion about the connection between the fate of the Earth and the Universe and the insignificance of the place that our planet occupies in it. Leonardo denied the central position of the Earth both in the Universe and in the solar system.
The end of the XV ¾ the beginning of the XVI century. rightly bears the name of the era of the great geographical discoveries. In 1492, the Italian navigator Christopher Columbus discovered America. In 1498, the Portuguese Vasco da Gama circled Africa and reached India by sea. In 1516(17?) Portuguese travelers first reached China by sea. And in 1521, Spanish navigators led by Ferdinand Magellan made the first trip around the world. Rounding South America, they reached East Asia, after which they returned to Spain. These travels were an important step in expanding knowledge about the Earth.
In 1543, the work of Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) “On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres” was published, which outlined the heliocentric system of the world, reflecting the true picture of the universe. The discovery of Copernicus made a revolution in people's ideas about the world and their understanding of their place in it. The Italian philosopher, a fighter against scholastic philosophy and the Roman Catholic Church, Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) made a significant contribution to the development of the Copernican doctrine, as well as to freeing him from shortcomings and limitations. He argued that in the Universe there are countless stars similar to the Sun, a significant part of which is inhabited by living beings. In 1600, Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake by the Inquisition.
The invention of new means of studying the starry sky contributed greatly to the expansion of the boundaries of the known world. The Italian physicist and astronomer Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) designed a telescope with which he studied the structure of the Milky Way, establishing that it is a cluster of stars, observed the phases of Venus and spots on the Sun, discovered four large satellites of Jupiter. The last fact is noteworthy in that Galileo, by his observation, actually deprived the Earth of the last privilege in relation to other planets of the solar system ¾ of the monopoly on the "ownership" of a natural satellite. A little more than half a century later, the English physicist, mathematician and astronomer Isaac Newton (1642-1727), based on the results of his own research on optical phenomena, created the first mirror telescope, which to this day remains the main tool for studying the visible part of the Universe. With its help, many important discoveries were made, which made it possible to significantly expand, clarify and streamline ideas about the cosmic "home" of mankind.
The onset of a fundamentally new stage in the development of science is traditionally associated with the name of the philosopher and logician Francis Bacon (1561-1626), who developed inductive and experimental methods of scientific research. He proclaimed the main goal of science to increase the power of man over nature. This is achievable, according to Bacon, only under one condition - science should allow a person to understand nature as best as possible, so that, obeying it, a person, in the end, can dominate in and over it.
At the end of the XVI century. The Dutch inventor Zachary Jansen (lived in the 16th century) created the first microscope that allows you to take images of small objects magnified with glass lenses. The English naturalist Robert Hooke (1635¾1703) significantly improved the microscope (his device gave a 40-fold magnification), with which he first observed plant cells, and also studied the structure of some minerals.
His pen belongs to the first work - "Micrography" telling about the use of microscope technology. One of the first microscopists, the Dutchman Anthony van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723), who achieved perfection in the art of grinding optical glasses, received lenses that made it possible to obtain an almost three hundredfold increase in the observed objects. Based on them, he created a device of an original design, with the help of which he studied not only the structure of insects, protozoa, fungi, bacteria and blood cells, but also food chains, population regulation, which later became the most important sections of ecology. Leeuwenhoek's research actually marked the beginning of the scientific study of the hitherto unknown living microcosm, this integral component of the human habitat.
The French naturalist Georges Buffon (1707-1788), author of the 36-volume Natural History, expressed thoughts about the unity of the animal and plant world, about their vital activity, distribution and connection with the environment, defended the idea of species change under the influence of environmental conditions. He drew the attention of contemporaries to the striking similarity in the structure of the body of man and monkey. However, fearing accusations of heresy by the Catholic Church, Buffon was forced to refrain from speaking about their possible "kinship" and origin from a single ancestor.
A significant contribution to the formation of a true pre-compression about the place of man in nature was the compilation by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) of a classification system for the plant and animal world, according to which a person was included in the system of the animal kingdom and belonged to the class of mammals, order of primates, in As a result, the human species was named Homo sapiens.
major event in the 18th century. was the emergence of the evolutionary concept of the French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829), according to which the main reason for the development of organisms from lower to higher forms is the desire inherent in living nature to improve the organization, as well as the influence of various external conditions on them. Changing external conditions change the needs of organisms; in response to this, new activities and new habits arise; their action, in turn, changes the organization, the morphology of the being in question; the new traits thus acquired are inherited by the offspring. Lamarck believed that this scheme is also valid in relation to man.
The ideas of the English priest, economist and demographer Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834) had a certain influence on the development of environmental ideas of contemporaries and the subsequent development of scientific thought. He formulated the so-called "law of population", according to which the population increases exponentially, while the means of subsistence (primarily food) can only increase in arithmetic progression. Malthus proposed to deal with the overpopulation that inevitably arises with such a development of events by regulating marriages and limiting the birth rate. He also called in every possible way to "contribute to the actions of nature that cause mortality ...": to overpopulate houses, to make narrow streets in cities, thereby creating favorable conditions for the spread of deadly diseases (such as plague). The views of Malthus were subjected to severe criticism even during the life of their author, not only for their anti-humanity, but also for their speculation.
Ecological trend in plant geography throughout the first half of the 19th century. was developed by the German naturalist-encyclopedist, geographer and traveler Alexander Friedrich Wilhelm Humboldt (1769-1859). He studied in detail the features of the climate in various regions of the Northern Hemisphere and compiled a map of its isotherms, discovered the relationship between climate and the nature of vegetation, and attempted to identify botanical-geographic regions (phytocenoses) on this basis.
A special role in the development of ecology was played by the works of the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809-1882), who created the theory of the origin of species through natural selection. Among the most important problems of ecology studied by Darwin is the problem of the struggle for existence, in which, according to the proposed concept, it is not the strongest species that wins, but the one that has managed to better adapt to the specific circumstances of life. He paid special attention to the influence of lifestyle, living conditions and interspecific interactions on their morphology and behavior.
In 1866, the German evolutionary zoologist Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) in his work “General Morphology of Organisms” proposed the whole range of issues related to the problem of the struggle for existence and the influence of a complex of physical and biotic conditions on living beings, to call the term “ecology” . In his speech “On the path of development and the task of zoology”, delivered in 1869, Haeckel defined the subject of a new branch of knowledge as follows: “By ecology we mean the science of economy, the domestic life of animal organisms. It investigates the general relations of animals to both their inorganic and their organic environment, their friendly and hostile relations to other animals and plants with which they come into direct or indirect contact, or, in a word, all those intricate relationships that Darwin conventionally designated as a struggle for existence. It should be noted, however, that Haeckel's proposal was somewhat ahead of his time: more than half a century passed before the word "ecology" became firmly established in scientific use as a designation for a new independent branch of scientific knowledge.
During the second half of the XIX century. several large, relatively autonomously developing areas of environmental research have developed, the originality of each of which was determined by the presence of a specific object of study in it. These include, with a certain degree of conventionality, plant ecology, animal ecology, human ecology, and geoecology.
Plant ecology was formed on the basis of two botanical disciplines at once - phytogeography and plant physiology. Accordingly, the main attention within this direction was paid to revealing the patterns of distribution of various plant species over the Earth's surface, identifying the possibilities and mechanisms for their adaptation to specific growing conditions, studying the characteristics of plant nutrition, etc. German scientists made a significant contribution to the development of this direction in the second half of the 19th century. ¾ botanist A.A. Grisenbach, agrochemist Yu. Liebig, plant physiologist Yu. Saks, Russian chemist and agrochemist D.I. Mendeleev and others.
Research within the framework of animal ecology was also carried out in several main areas: regularities of the settlement of specific species on the surface of the planet were revealed, the causes, methods and ways of their migration were clarified, food chains, features of inter- and intraspecific relationships, the possibility of their use in the interests of man, etc. were studied. The development of these and a number of other areas was carried out by American researchers - zoologist S. Forbes and entomologist C. Reilly, Danish zoologist O.F. Muller, Russian researchers ¾ paleontologist V.A. Kovalevsky, zoologists K.M. Baer, A.F. Middendorf and K.F. Ruler, naturalist A. A. Silantiev, zoogeographer N. A. Severtsov, and others.
The problems of human ecology were developed mainly in connection with the study of the ecological aspects of human evolution and research in the field of medical epidemiology and immunology. The first direction of research in the period under review was represented by the English evolutionary biologists C. Darwin and T. Huxley, the English philosopher, sociologist and psychologist G. Spencer, the German naturalist C. Vogt and some other researchers, the second direction was represented by microbiologists, epidemiologists and immunologists E. Behring , R. Koch,
I.I. Mechnikov, L. Pasteur, G. Ricketts, P.P.E. Ru, P. Ehrlich and others.
Geoecology arose at the junction of the two largest earth sciences - geography and geology, as well as biology. At the dawn of the development of this branch of ecology, researchers were most interested in the problems of organizing and developing landscape complexes, the influence of geological processes on living organisms and humans, the structure, biochemical composition and features of the formation of the soil cover of the Earth, etc. A significant contribution to the development of this area was made by German geographers A Humboldt and K. Ritter, Russian soil scientist V.V. Dokuchaev, Russian geographer and botanist A.N. Krasnov and others.
Research carried out in the framework of the above areas laid the foundation for their separation into independent branches of scientific knowledge. In 1910, the International Botanical Congress was held in Brussels, at which plant ecology was singled out as an independent botanical discipline - a biological science that studies the relationship between a living organism and its environment. In the next few decades, human ecology, animal ecology, and geoecology also received official recognition as relatively independent areas of research.
Long before individual areas of ecological research gained independence, there was an obvious tendency towards a gradual enlargement of the objects of ecological study. If initially they were single individuals, their groups, specific biological species, etc., then over time they began to be supplemented by large natural complexes, such as "biocenosis", the concept of which was formulated by a German zoologist and hydrobiologist
K. Möbius back in 1877 (the new term was intended to denote the totality of plants, animals and microorganisms inhabiting a relatively homogeneous living space). Shortly before this, in 1875, the Austrian geologist E. Suess proposed the concept of "biosphere" to designate the "film of life" on the Earth's surface. The Russian, Soviet scientist V.I. Vernadsky in his book "Biosphere", which was published in 1926. In 1935, the English botanist A. Tensley introduced the concept of "ecological system" (ecosystem). And in 1940, the Soviet botanist and geographer V.N. Sukachev introduced the term "biogeocenosis", which he proposed to designate the elementary unit of the biosphere. Naturally, the study of such large-scale complex formations required the unification of the research efforts of representatives of different “special” ecologies, which, in turn, would be practically impossible without harmonizing their scientific categorical apparatus, as well as without developing common approaches to organizing the research process itself. Actually, it is precisely this need that owes its appearance to ecology as a single science, integrating in itself the particular subject ecologies that developed earlier relatively independently of each other. The result of their reunification was the formation of a “big ecology” (according to N.F. Reimers) or “microecology” (according to T.A. Akimova and V.V. Khaskin), which today includes the following main sections in its structure:
General ecology;
Bioecology;
Geoecology;
Human ecology (including social ecology);
Applied Ecology.
Factors that influenced the emergence and development of social ecology:
First, new concepts appeared in the study of man as a social being.
Secondly, with the introduction of new concepts in ecology (biocenosis, ecosystem, biosphere), the need to study patterns in nature, taking into account the data of not only natural but also social sciences, became obvious.
Thirdly, the research of scientists led to the conclusion that it is possible for a person to exist in a deteriorating state of the environment caused by a violation of the ecological balance.
Fourthly, the emergence and formation of social ecology was also influenced by the fact that the threat to ecological balance and its violation arise not only as a conflict of an individual or group with its natural environment, but also as a result of a complex relationship between three sets of systems: natural, technical and social. The desire of scientists to understand these systems led to the emergence and development of social ecology, with the aim of coordinating them in the name of protecting and protecting the human environment (as a natural and social being).
Social ecology is a relatively young scientific discipline. In fact, the emergence and subsequent development of social ecology was a natural consequence of the ever-increasing interest of representatives of various humanitarian disciplines - sociology, economics, political science, psychology, etc. - to the problems of interaction between man and the environment. From this it becomes clear why the term “social ecology” itself appeared thanks not to environmental biologists, but to social psychologists - the American researchers R. Park and E. Burgess. They first used this term in 1921 in their work on the theory of the behavior of the population in the urban environment. Using the concept of "social ecology", they wanted to emphasize that in this context we are talking not about a biological, but about a social phenomenon, which, however, also has biological characteristics. Thus, in America, initially social ecology was more of a sociology of the city or urban sociology.
In our country, "social ecology" was originally understood as another field of knowledge, which is designed to deal with the problem of harmonizing the relationship between society and nature. And this is possible only when rational environmental management becomes the basis of the socio-economic development of society.
Social ecology was officially recognized at the state level in the first quarter of the twentieth century. In 1922, H. Burroughs addressed the American Association of Geographers with a presidential address called Geography as Human Ecology. The main idea of this appeal is to bring ecology closer to man. The Chicago school of human ecology has gained worldwide fame: the study of the mutual relations of man as a holistic organism with his holistic environment. It was then that ecology and sociology first came into close interaction. Ecological techniques began to be applied to the analysis of the social system.
Significant progress in the development of social ecology and the process of its separation from bioecology occurred in the 60s of the current century. The 1966 World Congress of Sociologists played a special role in this. The rapid development of social ecology in subsequent years led to the fact that at the next congress of sociologists, held in Varna in 1970, it was decided to create a Research Committee of the World Association of Sociologists on Problems of Social Ecology.
During the period under review, the list of tasks that this branch of scientific knowledge, which was gradually gaining independence, was called upon to solve, significantly expanded. If at the dawn of the formation of social ecology, the efforts of researchers mainly boiled down to searching in the behavior of a territorially localized human population for analogues of laws and ecological relations characteristic of biological communities, then from the second half of the 60s, the range of issues under consideration was supplemented by the problems of determining the place and role of man in the biosphere. , working out ways to determine the optimal conditions for its life and development, harmonization of relationships with other components of the biosphere. The process of humanitarization that has engulfed social ecology in the past two decades has led to the fact that, in addition to the above tasks, the range of issues it develops includes the problems of identifying the general laws of the functioning and development of social systems, studying the influence of natural factors on the processes of socio-economic development and finding ways to control the action. these factors.
In our country, by the end of the 1970s, conditions had also developed for separating social and environmental issues into an independent area of interdisciplinary research.
There are three main stages in the development of this science.
The initial stage is empirical, associated with the accumulation of various data on the negative environmental consequences of the scientific and technological revolution. The result of this area of environmental research was the formation of a network of global environmental monitoring of all components of the biosphere.
The second stage is the "model". In 1972, the book by D. Meadows et al., The Limits to Growth, was published. She was a huge success. For the first time, data on various aspects of human activity were included in a mathematical model and studied using a computer. For the first time, a complex dynamic model of interaction between society and nature was studied at the global level.
Criticism of The Limits to Growth has been comprehensive and thorough. The results of criticism can be reduced to two provisions:
1) computer modeling of socio-economic systems at the global and regional levels is promising;
2) Meadows' "models of the world" are far from being adequate to reality.
Currently, there is a significant variety of global models: the Meadows model is a lace of loops of direct and feedback loops, the Mesarovic and Pestel model is a pyramid cut into many relatively independent parts, the J. Tinbergen model is a “tree” of organic growth, the model of V. Leontiev - also a tree.
The beginning of the third - global political - stage of social ecology is considered to be 1992, when the International Conference on Environment and Development was held in Rio de Janeiro. The heads of 179 states adopted an agreed strategy based on the concept of sustainable development.
The term "social ecology" owes its appearance to American researchers, representatives of the Chicago School of Social Psychology R. Park and E. Burgess. The authors used this term in the early twenties of the twentieth century. and began to use as a synonym for the concept of "human ecology". The concept of "social ecology" emphasizes not a biological, but a social phenomenon, which, however, also has biological characteristics.
One of the first definitions of social ecology was given in his work in 1927 by R. McKenzil. Under social ecology, he understood the science of the territorial and temporal relations of people who are influenced by the external environment. Such a definition of the subject of social ecology was intended to become the basis for the study of the territorial division of the population within urban agglomerations.
The term "social ecology" as a specific direction of research into the relationship of a person in society with the environment of his existence, did not take root in Western science, within which preference from the very beginning began to be given to the concept of "human ecology". This created certain difficulties for the formation of social ecology as an independent, humanitarian discipline. Within the framework of human ecology, the biological aspects of human life were developed, which had a more developed categorical and methodological apparatus, for a long time "shielded" humanitarian social ecology from the scientific community. At this time, social ecology independently developed as the ecology of the city.
Significant progress in the development of social ecology, its isolation from bioecology, occurred in the 60s of the last century. Already in the 1970s, social ecology became an independent scientific discipline. A significant contribution to the development of domestic social ecology was made by E. V. Girusov, A. N. A. Kochergin, Yu. G. Markov, N. F. Reimers and others. refers to the specific relationship between man and his environment. Tasks of social ecology: 1. study of the influence of the environment as a combination of natural and social factors on a person; 2. human impact on the environment, perceived as the framework of human life.
Purpose, tasks, subject of ecology research
Ecology seeks to know all the diversity of the organization of life on Earth, the relationship between animals, plants and their habitat. Ecology serves as the scientific basis for the rational use and protection of biological resources. aim environmental research is to preserve the human environment. home task modern ecology consists in systematizing a huge array of all theoretical and factual material on a single scientific basis, bringing it into a single system that reflects all aspects of the real relationship between nature and human society. The next, no less significant task is the scientific forecasting of natural changes caused by anthropogenic impact on the natural environment. And another important task is to scientifically ensure the restoration of disturbed natural systems and the development of nature reserves.
The subject of ecology according to E. Haeckel - the study of all relationships with organic and inorganic components of the environment. After Haeckel, various semantic shades were introduced into the concept of ecology, which expanded or narrowed its subject. In modern ecology, there has been a tendency towards an expanded interpretation of its subject. The subject of the study of ecology is the specific human activity aimed at the rational appropriation of natural resources (water, air, minerals, etc.).
