Wikipedia defines industrial ecology as a “systems-based, multidisciplinary discourse that seeks to understand emergent behaviour of complex integrated human/natural systems”. The paper found at the link above (Allenby, B. (2006) ‘The ontologies of industrial ecology?’ IN: progress in Industrial Ecology - An International Journal, Vol 3, Nos 1/2 pp28-40) discusses this new discipline as a post-modern field of study embodying various interacting and in some ways mutually exclusive ontologies. It seems to me to contribute to an interesting discussion about how valid scientific knowledge is produced in a network culture that supports interdisciplinarity rather than closed independant fields of study.