JULIE WINKLER

Another difficulty with the grafted tree

metaphor is that it ignores the transdisciplinary

quality that the authors argue is fundamental to

Geographical Sciences. A modification to the

authors’ metaphor might be that Geographical

Sciences is an overarching canopy formed by

the interlocking crowns of branches from the

trunks of all the disciplines contributing concepts,

techniques, and tools to Geographical

Sciences, including, among others, geography,

computer science, engineering, communication

arts, statistics, and psychology. In contrast

to a graft, a branch implies that Geographical

Sciences grows out of different disciplines

and is informed by these disciplines. Another difficulty with the grafted tree

metaphor is that it ignores the transdisciplinary

quality that the authors argue is fundamental to

Geographical Sciences. A modification to the

authors’ metaphor might be that Geographical

Sciences is an overarching canopy formed by

the interlocking crowns of branches from the

trunks of all the disciplines contributing concepts,

techniques, and tools to Geographical

Sciences, including, among others, geography,

computer science, engineering, communication

arts, statistics, and psychology. In contrast

to a graft, a branch implies that Geographical

Sciences grows out of different disciplines

and is informed by these disciplines.

Society’s

grand challenges are beset with uncertainty,

require multiple perspectives and a range of

approaches, and have few, if any, answers.

geographical scientists must embrace

complexity and uncertainty and recognize that

technical analyses, such as those using geographical

tools and techniques, “are only one

input to decision-making and not necessarily

the most important one”

Whatever the viewpoint, the authors, by

laying out their definition, description, and

conceptualization of Geographical Sciences,

have provided a jumping-off point for a

thoughtful and frank discussion of the goals,

opportunities, cross-fertilization, implications,

and future of Geographical Sciences. In the

end, Geography and Geographical Sciences

are intertwined, as geographers benefit from

the tools and techniques of Geographical

Sciences, and geographical scientists who are

trained withinGeography rely on the discipline

to provide them with unique perspectives and

knowledge that distinguish them from geographical

scientists trained in other disciplines.

A disciplinary journal, such as The Professional

Geographer, is in my view an excellent initial

forum for this discussion.

KEITH CLARK

My primary concern with the report is really

a consequence of how deeply the world

now finds itself in the throes of global

self-destruction and societal collapse. The

liturgy of ills that geographers are urged to

study by the report makes depressing reading:

We are killing the land and its flora and

fauna, changing the climate, overpopulating

the planet, starving people, creating new diseases,

and failing to treat the old ones. This is

followed by consumerism, international trade

with a massive carbon footprint, globalization

destroying regional and local identity, poverty

and inequality, with geopolitical posturing and

instability for all. Although the rise of geospatial

tools has allowed us to better visualize the

changing world, we have created a Web-based

monster that is eliminating personal privacy

and complicating life.

largely indistinguishable from environmental

science.

geography’s strength lies in synthesis and its

motivation lies in wonder (Weschler 1995).

With respect to wonder, Omenn (2006, 1696)

stated, “To a variable extent, we are all curious

about both the world of nature and the nature

of human societies.” How to pass that curiosity

and wonder on to a new generation that might

be able to solve some of the world’s problems

to me seems like the greatest challenge that

geography now faces, more so than identifying

today’s compelling problems.

Helge Nelson led his inquirer

up to the window from which one could see the

glittering water with an abundance of ships, the

abrasion slopes of Tycho Brahe’s island Ven,

farmlands and beech woods on both coasts, people

moving in the streets below, the towers

and chimneys of Copenhagen and the summerclouds

over Denmark. Professor Nelson swung

his arm across the scene and exclaimed: “This is

what we study.” And he did not mean bit by bit

but all at once.

it is well known that

breakthroughs in knowledge happen at the

edges and intersections of disciplines and

specialties (Kates 1987), not at their core.

geographers

need to first build a quiet and substantial respect

for their discipline by doing excellent

work in relevant areas. These areas are indeed

well covered by the eleven questions.

In the final section of the

report, the authors point to better means to

make their ideas heard by politicians. Although

political outreach is important for a discipline,

it is farmore compelling to have theworld come

to you. Geographers are well suited to build a

better mousetrap for the information future.

Perhaps, then the world will beat a path to geography’s

door.

RON JOHNSON

does those disciplines something of a disservice with its greater emphasis on the infrastructure

for data collection, visualization, and analysis at the expense of explanation and theory. It successfully

promotes some aspects of the disciplines but largely ignores other vibrant and important parts. Its long-term

impact is uncertain. Key Words: cyberinfrastructure, geographical sciences, problem solving, society–nature.

Beyond those hallowed halls, there

are immense problems overcoming public misapprehensions,

even ignorance, about what geographers

do.

offering a teaching

prospectus is not enough: Research is the key

because it brings status and, especially, money.

And money will only flow to a discipline if its

members can convince funding bodies of their

credibility—that they address major problems

from a particular perspective with the expected

(scientific) rigor and produce results that are

respected and built on by others across the relevant

associated disciplines.

the

national science community is still somewhat

unclear as to what geographers have to offer in

the contemporary world.

The word

theory rarely appears in this entire document—

which will make other natural and social scientists

wonder (wrongly, but understandably)

about the depth of scholarship in the geographical

sciences.

we also have a long

tradition of using them to answer important

questions; we are not just data collectors and

providers but analytical scientists with theories

and (provisional) explanations of the worlds

we study (on which see Chisholm, 1971a).

TREVOR BARNES

My commentary argues that this model of science,

with its celebration of large data sets, sophisticated methodological techniques, and various material tools and

hardware, is only one model of geography’s contribution. Instead, I suggest that the strength of geography is

in its pluralism and methodological variety, and in the end that will do more for understanding the changing

planet than anything else. Key Words: planetary crisis, pluralism, science.

Understanding the Changing Planet es el ´ ultimo de una larga serie de informes que toman a cargo la relevancia

de la disciplina de la geograf´ıa invocando la ciencia con una gran “C.” Mi comentario arguye que este modelo

de ciencia, con su celebraci ´on de grandes conjuntos de datos, t´ecnicas metodol ´ ogicas sofisticadas y varias

herramientas materiales y hardware, no pasa de ser un modelo de la contribuci ´on de la geograf´ıa. En vez

de eso, sugiero que la fuerza de la geograf´ıa se encuentra en su pluralismo y variedad metodol ´ ogica, y que

en ´ ultimas eso har´a m´as para entender el cambiante planeta que cualquiera otra cosa. Palabras clave: crisis

planetaria, pluralismo, ciencia.

Written under the auspices of the U.S.

National Research Council (NRC), Understanding

the Changing Planet is the latest in a

long line of reports that date back almost half

a century upselling the geographical sciences.

The first such report was The Science of Geography

published by the NRC (1965). Edward

A. Ackerman (1965, iv) was “Chairman” of the

Ad Hoc Committee on Geography that produced

that report. TheNRC had been brought

in two years earlier after the Office of Naval

Research, a central research funding agency

for American geography during the immediate

postwar period, gave a dodgy assessment about

“the status of geography” (Ackerman 1965, v).

It found that the discipline “does not have the

esteem which it merits by virtue of the importance

of its subject matter” (quoted in Ackerman

1965, v). Ackerman and his committee

(Brian J. L. Berry, Reid A. Bryson, Saul B. Cohen,

Edward J. Taaffe,William L. Thomas Jr.,

and “Reds” Wolman) fought back, trying to

douse doubts, making the argument that geography

“was on the threshold of an important

opportunity”: to be as scientific a science as

any other. “It would share in the development

of a common interest among several branches

of science,” and would include the deployment

of “a more or less common language for

communication . . . [defined by] mathematical

statistics and systems analysis . . . [along with]

farmore powerful techniques than ever before”

(NRC 1965, 1–2). The world would be geography’s

oyster in a way that it never was in the

past.

There is a sense when you read the preface

to Understanding the Changing Planet that,

like the 1965 Report, there is still a worry about

the esteem in which geography is held. The

preface begins with a long list of familiar grisly

The Professional Geographer, 63(3) 2011, pages 332–336 C _ Copyright 2011 by Association of American Geographers.

Initial submission, October 2010; final acceptance, December 2010.

Published by

I want to make an

argument that the very strength of geography

is precisely in its methodological diversity and

pluralism, which in the end will best contribute

to understanding the changing planet.

always be prepared to give up our beliefs, even

our most cherished beliefs, for other ones. But

for this to be possible there must be other

beliefs available, even those we might loathe.

Oliver Wendell Holmes said,

“We permit free expression because we need

the resources of the whole group to get us the

ideas we need” (quoted in Menand 2001, 431).

This is the virtue of a geography not ruled by

a single big “S” Science approach. Its history

has always been one of a teeming variety of

approaches. There might have been too much

“blooming, buzzing, and confusion” for some

as a result, but for pragmatists it is precisely

the Irish stew of different and competing approaches

that simmer on the geographical disciplinary

hob that in the end will “get us the

ideas we need.”

The second is the idea that the world need

not cohere as a single unit but is inherently

fragmented and irreconcilable.

“nothing includes everything, or

dominates over everything. The word ‘and’

trails along after every sentence. Something always

escapes.” Consequently, there is no single

method that knits together the different parts

of the world.

Geography has

been a discipline that whenever it came to a

fork in the road took it. For the next report the

Geographical Sciences Committee needs to tell

the NRC about life off the highway.

ALEX MURPHY

the report should be seen as

a study demonstrating, for a broad audience, the types of contributions the geographical sciences can make

to addressing major issues of the day. Key Words: geographical research, geographical science, geography.

our efforts were channeled and shaped by the

charge we were given. We were to develop “a

short list of high-priority research questions in

the geographical sciences that are relevant to

societal needs.” Moreover, we had to write the

report in a manner that would be broadly accessible,

and we had to keep it relatively short.The

goal, we were told, was to put together a report

that would provide “guidance to policymakers

and research funding agencies in making commitments

to geographical science scholarship,”

and to write our questions “in a clear, compelling

way and summarize research progress

to date.”

the committee

members came to think that the report was

enriched by the collective effort that went into

it, and it is from the perspective of what we

tried to achieve as a collectivity that I turn to

the critical comments that have been raised.

The report’s focus on the “geographical

sciences” reflects both a shift in terminology

within the NRC and the desire of those who

wrote the charge to the committee to address

geographical work carried out beyond the

formal discipline of geography.

we sought to present a

vision of the geographical sciences as an emerging

perspective that was in no way threatening

to, or oppositional to, geography.

committee consistently embraced the idea that

the geographical sciences routinely employ

mixed methods and multiple approaches in addressing

complex problems.

Given the report’s remit

and the audience we were asked to address,

we thought it best to highlight a range of work

showing what the geographical sciences had to

contribute rather than provide detailed discussions

of fewer studies.

our focus in this section had to be

on what funding agencies, policymakers, and

educational institutions might do in support of

the geographical sciences enterprise, not what

types of roles we could imagine for the geographical

sciences in the twenty-first-century

academy.

metaphor

was intended simply to convey the idea that

something has grown beyond the initial “root

stock” of geography.

Whatever perspective one takes on

this matter, we framed our lead questions in

“how” terms in an effort to direct attention to

important processes unfolding on Earth’s surface.

Our unwritten assumption was that one

cannot get to how without, at some level, first

dealing with why.

our general approach was to demonstrate

that without geographical perspectives,

techniques, and methods, understandings and

theories are frequently inadequate.

it seeks to show how a series

of methods, approaches, and perspectives associated

with the geographical sciences (broadly

conceived) might be of use in addressing key

contemporary issues.

The effort to raise a

broad array of critical issues and show how geographical

approaches and techniques can help

address them can also stimulate the kind of constructive

reflection that is in evidence throughout

much of this Focus Section. As part ofthat reflection, the approaches we took and the

choices we made can and should be questioned,

but the discussion will likely bemost productive

if the report is taken on its own terms. Whatever

its limitationsmight be, I amconfident the

report can do some good for society, geographical

scientists, and geographers—if we will let

it.