In 1987, Alier publisher Ecological Economics: Energy, Environment, and Society, one of the first books on ecological economics, the aim of which seems to be an effort to employ some kind of energy accounting system into economic theory and practice. Alier notes that engineer Josef Popper tried unsuccessfully to promote a biophysical view of the economy as a subsystem embedded in a larger system subject to the law of thermodynamics. He notes that Popper wrote on the history of thermodynamics wherein he insisted on strict separation of scientific propositions and metaphysical propositions, complaining about William Thomson’s religious tirades based on the second law. [2]