To accelerate biosphere science, researchers say we need to reconnect three scientific cultures

Researchers studying Earth’s biosphere typically operate from one of three scientific cultures, each with different ways of doing science, and operating largely independently of one another, find the authors of a Perspective published in PNAS on April 19, 2024. SFI professors Christopher Kempes and Geoffrey West, along with external professor Brian Enquist (University of Arizona), identify and explain the three cultures, and suggest that reconnecting them could help accelerate biosphere science.

The first culture – variance – is what we all participate in when we take part in bird counts or collect insects or wildflowers. It is naming and observing the details of biology. The second – accuracy – emphasizes models that use more and more data and increasingly fine detail and resolution.

“Exactitude culture would be the perspective that the best model in the world is a world-class model,” says Kempes. The third – coarse-grained culture – focuses on generalities, simplifications and underlying principles. This approach tries to work out the big picture. These cultures exist throughout science, but are currently relatively disconnected from each other in the life sciences.

“Ultimately, good science needs and includes all of these cultures,” West says. “And good science—that is, deep understanding that explains what we know and observe, provides new insights, and makes predictions that can be tested—underlies long-term solutions to big problems.

“It is critical for informing practitioners and policymakers in tackling the enormous problems of the 21st century. This has become a matter of great urgency for addressing the future of the planet and the sustainability of our entire social economic enterprise.”

But there is a delay in developing a predictive science of the biosphere. Critics suggest the cause may be a lack of data, an inadequate number of experiments, or the complex nature of the biosphere. “We’re suggesting it’s more than that,” says Enquist. “The delay is in large part due to unresolved tensions between these three scientific cultures.”

And that tension limits how quickly science can advance, how deeply we can understand, and our ability to make predictions. “Synthetic, synergistic and integrated science – science that can tackle increasingly complex problems – emerges when all three cultures come together,” he says.

The authors cite the theory of evolution as one example. Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace both started in variance culture, but also thought in terms of general principles. They independently developed the (very coarse-grained) theory of evolution.

Later, this theory was combined with genetics to produce mathematical theories for population genetics, leading to the modern evolutionary synthesis. That theory, in turn, has been elaborated with models and modern computing by the accuracy culture.

Tensions inevitably arise when integrating cultures, but that can be a good thing for science: These tensions reveal assumptions, leading to a transparent understanding of the key variables and mechanisms driving the system, says Enquist . Integration makes predictions more effective by continuously challenging theory with data, and provides an iteration mechanism. That, in turn, allows scientists to quickly refine their assumptions and predictions, and drives new data collection.

To move toward integration, the authors suggest that the biosphere science community engage more with historians of science, and increase the reach, workshops, undergraduate programs, awards, and funding of transculturalism in science. Finally, academic journals should promote articles that transcend not only disciplines but also cultures.

As the Modern Evolutionary Synthesis showed, biologists have not always been divided by culture, and they need not be so now. By breaking down artificial academic and intellectual barriers, biosphere scientists will open the door to rapid, revolutionary and urgently needed scientific progress, Kempes says. “All that is really needed is for people to show interest in the other scientific cultures.”