“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” was a philosophical question posed by George Berkeley to explore various concepts relating to perception; is a sound only a sound if someone hears it, how much can we truly know about the unobserved world and so forth. I’m not looking to start a metaphysics debate (honestly!) but, for me, the answer is decidedly ‘yes, it does’. At least that’s the case if you happen to have an acoustic recorder somewhere in the vicinity of said tree when it falls. Continue reading “Ecologist’s Diary with Richard Beason: If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it… it does make a sound!”