Each year, I listen to multiple talks addressing restoration while at a conference focused on the upper Mississippi River. For young presenters, restoration seems to be an almost Biblical before-the-fall concept, a Garden-of-Eden time before Europeans arrived and screwed up everything through destruction of wetlands and prairies, construction of dams, mass murder of indigenous species and peoples, and introduction of invasive species and agriculture. Seldom do they remember that the horses that Plains Indians rode are an invasive species brought by the Spanish, though they recognize the Spanish as invasive. But a long time ago, the Plains Indians were themselves an invasive species and before that, Homo sapiens radiated out of Africa to invade Europe, not a great time for Homo neanderthalensis.<\/p>\r\n
All this talk of ice ages and invasive species leads to the question of whether there is a best <\/i> time to restore things to. Mathematics seems to offer us the best objective standards upon which to base decisions, but that is an illusion. For example, Excel will perform a best fit of a line to a cloud of data points. Straightforward, eh? Anyone who has been through calculus can generate the equations, and anyone who has taken statistics can find the line, no Excel needed. But underlying the best <\/i> in best-fit is an assumption about what best <\/i> means. Generally, in math we mean a minimization of squared deviations\u2014a least-squares approach. But why that? For a simple reason\u2014it\u2019s mathematically easier to find derivatives of squared deviations than the absolute value of deviations. But easy<\/i> math <\/i>(an oxymoron to some) is no justification.<\/p>\r\n
I have been unable to find any example of best <\/i> that doesn\u2019t involve some sort of value judgement. I have a Christian-philosopher friend who argues otherwise, but ultimately, his statements shift to something based on faith. God created a world with objective truth at its foundation, providing guidelines for living that maximize human flourishing. And as best I can tell, the system holds together\u2014if you accept the fundamentally religious foundation. (Perhaps accepting that religious foundation is why do so many conservatives love the 1950s.)<\/p>\r\n
Unfortunately, I don\u2019t accept the religious foundation. I say \u201cunfortunately\u201d because to do so would make much that follows a lot easier. However, I see the concept of best <\/i> as socially constructed\u2014humans made it up. Don\u2019t get me wrong\u2014that doesn\u2019t devalue it, as far as I\u2019m concerned. In fact, it makes it more precious and hard fought, generating consensus, at least for a short time, about what is important to our community. And that we choose to agree to abide by a community decision about best is humbling\u2014we as a group think better than each individual. What an accomplishment it is if we can bring together environmentalists, accountants, libertarians, public health officials, stock brokers, the Corps of Engineers, hunters and fishermen, and all the others who might care about a little piece of wetland along the Mississippi River and hammer out an agreement on the way to manage it.<\/p>\r\n
Consensus-building is not group-think, <\/i> the sort of people-pleasing behavior I spent years in therapy and self-help groups dealing with. People-pleasers struggle with conformity, loss of creativity, and helping design camels that were meant to be horses. But people-pleasing is not consensus-building. In the Quaker college where I studied, I saw that consensus isn\u2019t easy nor does it mean that we all agree. Nor is it a nimble way to make decisions and get ahead of the market. Building consensus is usually slow, sometimes tedious, and can be blocked by any individual who is unwilling to go along with the decision of the community. But going along does not mean agreeing with. It simply means a choice not to actively oppose the community\u2019s decision nor to work against it once the decision is made. For me, it took years for that Quaker lesson to sink in.<\/p>\r\n
At its root, building consensus is far more respectful of all views than a top down or even each-vote-counts approach. It guarantees each person is heard, their many diverse views carefully considered, and that the decision arrived at can be supported by the entire community. In the environmental field, we\u2019re more likely to talk about interested parties <\/i> or competing users <\/i> than about diversity, but the concept is the same\u2014get as many viewpoints as are available, consider as many people affected by a decision as possible, and work toward an agreement all can support. Diversity becomes a strength. And given today\u2019s political climate, we must<\/i> get people together to calmly discuss alternatives and agree on a path forward.<\/p>","rendered":"
Each year, I listen to multiple talks addressing restoration while at a conference focused on the upper Mississippi River. For young presenters, restoration seems to be an almost Biblical before-the-fall concept, a Garden-of-Eden time before Europeans arrived and screwed up everything through destruction of wetlands and prairies, construction of dams, mass murder of indigenous species and peoples, and introduction of invasive species and agriculture. Seldom do they remember that the horses that Plains Indians rode are an invasive species brought by the Spanish, though they recognize the Spanish as invasive. But a long time ago, the Plains Indians were themselves an invasive species and before that, Homo sapiens radiated out of Africa to invade Europe, not a great time for Homo neanderthalensis.<\/p>\n
All this talk of ice ages and invasive species leads to the question of whether there is a best <\/i> time to restore things to. Mathematics seems to offer us the best objective standards upon which to base decisions, but that is an illusion. For example, Excel will perform a best fit of a line to a cloud of data points. Straightforward, eh? Anyone who has been through calculus can generate the equations, and anyone who has taken statistics can find the line, no Excel needed. But underlying the best <\/i> in best-fit is an assumption about what best <\/i> means. Generally, in math we mean a minimization of squared deviations\u2014a least-squares approach. But why that? For a simple reason\u2014it\u2019s mathematically easier to find derivatives of squared deviations than the absolute value of deviations. But easy<\/i> math <\/i>(an oxymoron to some) is no justification.<\/p>\n
I have been unable to find any example of best <\/i> that doesn\u2019t involve some sort of value judgement. I have a Christian-philosopher friend who argues otherwise, but ultimately, his statements shift to something based on faith. God created a world with objective truth at its foundation, providing guidelines for living that maximize human flourishing. And as best I can tell, the system holds together\u2014if you accept the fundamentally religious foundation. (Perhaps accepting that religious foundation is why do so many conservatives love the 1950s.)<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, I don\u2019t accept the religious foundation. I say \u201cunfortunately\u201d because to do so would make much that follows a lot easier. However, I see the concept of best <\/i> as socially constructed\u2014humans made it up. Don\u2019t get me wrong\u2014that doesn\u2019t devalue it, as far as I\u2019m concerned. In fact, it makes it more precious and hard fought, generating consensus, at least for a short time, about what is important to our community. And that we choose to agree to abide by a community decision about best is humbling\u2014we as a group think better than each individual. What an accomplishment it is if we can bring together environmentalists, accountants, libertarians, public health officials, stock brokers, the Corps of Engineers, hunters and fishermen, and all the others who might care about a little piece of wetland along the Mississippi River and hammer out an agreement on the way to manage it.<\/p>\n
Consensus-building is not group-think, <\/i> the sort of people-pleasing behavior I spent years in therapy and self-help groups dealing with. People-pleasers struggle with conformity, loss of creativity, and helping design camels that were meant to be horses. But people-pleasing is not consensus-building. In the Quaker college where I studied, I saw that consensus isn\u2019t easy nor does it mean that we all agree. Nor is it a nimble way to make decisions and get ahead of the market. Building consensus is usually slow, sometimes tedious, and can be blocked by any individual who is unwilling to go along with the decision of the community. But going along does not mean agreeing with. It simply means a choice not to actively oppose the community\u2019s decision nor to work against it once the decision is made. For me, it took years for that Quaker lesson to sink in.<\/p>\n
At its root, building consensus is far more respectful of all views than a top down or even each-vote-counts approach. It guarantees each person is heard, their many diverse views carefully considered, and that the decision arrived at can be supported by the entire community. In the environmental field, we\u2019re more likely to talk about interested parties <\/i> or competing users <\/i> than about diversity, but the concept is the same\u2014get as many viewpoints as are available, consider as many people affected by a decision as possible, and work toward an agreement all can support. Diversity becomes a strength. And given today\u2019s political climate, we must<\/i> get people together to calmly discuss alternatives and agree on a path forward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"menu_order":5,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"part":131,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/pressbooks.dbq.edu\/storyoftheearth\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/135"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/pressbooks.dbq.edu\/storyoftheearth\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/pressbooks.dbq.edu\/storyoftheearth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pressbooks.dbq.edu\/storyoftheearth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/pressbooks.dbq.edu\/storyoftheearth\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":136,"href":"http:\/\/pressbooks.dbq.edu\/storyoftheearth\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/135\/revisions\/136"}],"part":[{"href":"http:\/\/pressbooks.dbq.edu\/storyoftheearth\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/131"}],"metadata":[{"href":"http:\/\/pressbooks.dbq.edu\/storyoftheearth\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/135\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/pressbooks.dbq.edu\/storyoftheearth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pressbooks.dbq.edu\/storyoftheearth\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=135"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pressbooks.dbq.edu\/storyoftheearth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=135"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pressbooks.dbq.edu\/storyoftheearth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}