A case for tolerance in marine ecology: let us not put out the baby with the bathwater

After working in marine ecological research and lecturing at universities f or several decades, the authors are aware that almost none of the concepts and paradigms established at the time they were students or in the decades before have survived unchanged up to the present day. This appears quite na tural taking into account the enormous progress made by marine science due to refined methods, extended range of research e.g. into the deep sea and t he polar regions, increased number of researchers and funding, and greatly improved and accelerated exchange of scientific results. What is striking, however, against this background is the almost messianic fervour with which many of our professional guild (and not only the younger ones lacking expe rience) call for the immediate "abolishment" or "dismissal" of old ideas be cause their creators were wrong in thinking the way they did. In these auth ors' opinion, there is a basic misunderstandig about the role of ecological concepts in scientific argumentation. Very few concepts are so foolish tha t they can be dismissed entirely without any loss; the vast majority contai n some truth that may fit at least certain situations, and may thus serve a s a brickstone in constructing ecological theory. An attempt will be made t o expand on that point in this contribution. What is more important: many o f the concepts nowadays considered (partially?) erroneous have stimulated s cientific discussion enormously, in some cases up to the present day and ha ve, by their mere existence, guaranteed that ecological work was found nece ssary to continue in the respective fields. Finally, observing the tremendo us pace at which ecological progress is being made these days in some disci plines and at the same time, the degree of uncertainty we are - despite all efforts - still facing in others, it is not difficult to anticipate that m any of the new ideas replacing the old concepts nowadays will end up shortl y on the garbage dump of science history as well. So tolerance should be th e motto: let us not put out the baby with the bathwater! Give the old conce pts their credit, look eagerly for alternatives and try to provide the best possible evidence for your results, but be modest. There may be various so lutions to one ecological problem, and the way to handle this situation is differentiation, not abolishment.