IN SCIENCE, AS IN LIFE, we humans make progress in fits and starts. When pressed, few successful scientists will say that they had a clear vision of the precise steps to be taken relative to their intended paths of investigation. Those who are responsible for the interpretation of research for the purpose of promulgating regulations for environmental protection also suffer alternating surges of certainty and uncertainty. This is not to say that scientists and administrators do not address their respective areas in a logical progression. Rather, it suggests that the process of developing an understanding of complex biological and social systems is, by nature, evolutionary. In science, we devote much time to rejecting alternative hypotheses in hopes that a properly constructed null will ultimately emerge and provide an understanding of some pattern or process. Because of the complexity of the problems in biological systems, the rejecting of alternatives frequently takes longer than we might like, especially for those responsible for developing protocols related to human-initiated changes to our world. Regardless of the fact that knowledge of our complex biological world takes time to accumulate, we are forced ever more often to develop regulations that balance environmental cost with economic return derived from biological communities that range from largely undisturbed to highly manipulated.