Abstract: Since its inception, conservation biology has been, like medicine, a mission‐oriented field, its mission being to preserve the Earth's biodiversity. Unlike medicine, however, conservation biology has no regular, systematically employed mechanisms in place for monitoring the success or failure of its efforts. My appraisal of papers published in the first three issues of volume 13 of Conservation Biology indicates that the majority of research in the discipline yields more descriptions and recommendations than actual conservation achievements. This does not appear to be a problem of motivation or the quality of our science. We have made undeniable advances in our understanding of conservation biology, but this has not produced comparable conservation results, in part because the forces causing the extinction of species and the disruption of ecosystems often have little to do with biology. Have we undertaken a task whose completion lies beyond the power of our science and technology? In War and Peace , Leo Tolstoy used the failure of Napoleon's invasion of
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