Prado & El Hani suggested that use of the words “population” and “community” has not retarded the development of ecology, and they may be right. However, those words have outlived their usefulness in most applied research, and it is time to move forward. I am not the only ecologist to question the usefulness of those terms, and the argument that many people still employ them is not sufficient justification for their use in situations where vague terms are prejudicial to conservation and sustainable development.