Socio-Ecological Webs and Sites of Sociality:Levins’ Strategy of Model Building Revisited

This essay extends Levins’ 1966 analysis of model building in ecology and evolutionary biology. A model, as the product of modeling, might be valued according to its correspondence to reality. Yet Levins’ emphasis on provisionality and change redirects attention to the processes of modeling, through which scientists select and generate their problems, define their categories, collect their data, compare competing models, and present their findings. I identify several points where decisions are required that are not determined by nature. This invites examination of the social considerations modelers are reacting to at the “sites of sociality”. Modelers must weave “socio-ecological webs” so that the models can be seen to represent their subject matter at the same time as the modelers secure the support of colleagues, collaborators and institutions, and enjoin others to act upon their conclusions. Not only do theory justification and theory generation merge, but the joint project becomes simultaneously philosophical and sociological.