Biogeographical theory and cultural analogies

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Abstract
This article is intended as a warning against giving biogeographical models more respect than they deserve. Few academics are primarily concerned with biotic distributions. Many taxonomists and ecologists have geographical interests, but they must cope with hundreds of thousands of species. Most biogeographers are too absorbed in field exploration to have much time for general theory. The separate scholarly traditions of museum and mathematical biogeography each have sets of concepts having little connection with concepts used in field biogeography. Moreover, some schools of thought are in the primitive state of confusing a priori assumptions with tested theory and of accepting deductive explanations without investigating the processes involved. An increasing emphasis on ecology, however, is enabling field biogeographers, like modern archaeologists, to elucidate evolutionary and migrational processes by working on middle‐scale studies of areas and time spans that contain enough biotic and habitat diversity to be challenging without being overwhelming. On the other hand, attempts to reach grand syntheses by ignoring species differences are bound to be time‐wasting detours, not shortcuts to understanding.

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