Green fields, ugly ducklings and black swans: Aesthetic dimensions of ecological science

Abstract Despite its relative infancy, ecological science plays a pre‐eminent role in current environmental decision‐making globally and has, over recent decades, permeated a broad range of academic disciplines. Developments in two areas of philosophical thought in particular, environmental aesthetics and the aesthetics of science, beg an exploration of their intersection with respect to the role of aesthetics in ecological science. Here, we provide a contemporary synthesis of both environmental aesthetics and aesthetics of science to explore aesthetic dimensions of contemporary ecological science, highlighting three main areas of convergence: (1) the influence of aesthetic experiences and judgements of nature by ecologists on ecological science and our contemporary understanding of nature; (2) the development and role of ecological ‘taste’ among ecologists; and (3) moral, cultural and political implications of the ecological imagination as underpinned by current ecological science. We identify a risk for feedback mechanisms to perpetuate a relatively homogeneous ecological aesthetic as a result of reciprocal influences between ecological science and society which may further promote inadvertent policy advocacy and stifle scientific innovation. We suggest ecological science would benefit from increased aesthetic literacy and reflection by broadening the ecological imagination and intentionally facilitating more diverse and equitable science to inform policy outcomes. Our argument should be of interest to philosophers of science, ecologists and those that draw on their outputs. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.