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Anyone who writes "life thrives in a balance between natural imbalance and balance" is obviously using multiple definitions of the word at the same time. That's good for metaphors and poems. Hard science requires something more specific.
Excellent point. To be honest, I think the author was being intentionally disingenuous by not presenting a clear-cut definition of balance. It feels like he needed to write an article, so he intentionally inhabited the spaces of ambiguity between definitions to make a non-argument.
The only thing I can draw from your article, Jonathon, is that you're somehow in favour of representing nature in terms of "balance" because that would make our relationship with it more emotive. Even if this means refuting or "reinterpreting" scientific fact. If you need to view nature as "balanced" to have an emotive connection with it, that's your problem, not something that we should cleave to. Nature doesn't have a homeostatic function, and it's pointless and damaging to try to force one on it
