[Revised entry by Jay Odenbaugh on June 18, 2025.
Changes to: Main text, Bibliography]
One way of conceptualizing the structure of a science is that at any time it contains ontologies, theories, and values (Kuhn 1962; Lakatos 1976; Laudan 1978, 1986). In this entry, we explore questions regarding the ontology, theories, and values central to conservation biology. First, conservation biology as a discipline has expended a great deal of intellectual effort in articulating exactly what it is that they study and has settled on biodiversity as the answer. However, there is a debate concerning what…

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