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Well, I guess I stirred things up. Seems like this is getting a little hot
for a family affair, so let me clarify.
Rich Lane wrote:
> I don't know about Shell, but Amoco just reduced its VP level by
> 17 out of a total I believe of fortysomething. Pretty
> siignificant, huh?
Quite significant! Can't say it pleases me either. What are these people
going to do? Follow the paleontologists and open motels, flip burgers,
teach part time? The economy, they say, is growing again, but the levels
involved are much different now. From what I read, the skilled people that
were let go are not finding equivalent jobs, but going down significant
levels in pay and skills. More importantly to us, what are all those
paleontologists who were let go doing? That's an important issue to our
profession. What are new paleontologists going to do? That's particularly
important and frustrating to those of us "sitting pretty" in academia.
> Remember, Jere, industry is at the front end
> of the money-chain. What we generate, we earn.
It IS important to remember. That's why industry should be encouraged to
stay in this country and to help it survive. I am a strong believer in
capitalism, but it should not be driven solely by the profit margin.
People count, they DO--as Chevron is wont to say. How about responsible
capitalism that considers the impact on people and on the future welfare of
the nation and the corporations. That seems a long way from PaleoNet
subjects, but everyone is threatened by the transfer of skilled people to
lesser jobs or out altogether. See below for the academic situation, which
stinks too.
> We pay taxes to
> the government so that it can be passed on to those claiming to
> do research.
Whoa! I ain't gonna touch that one.
> Money is not handed to industry by a government, or
> some other funding agency.
Seems to me I've heard about oil-depletion allowances, subsidies,
exemptions, etc. Some of it is a handout, damn sure! And what about all
those industrial lobby people getting favorable laws passed for theirs?
Something wrong, or is it just the way we do business in the US? The
University of California has a lobby in Washington too, to put me in my
place right away.
> Academics don't need to worry about world competition.
Why don't you drop by sometime and I'll show you world-wide, nation-wide,
state-wide, local, and university examples of the competition academics
face. It is by definition a competitive environment, even for those
handouts NSF channels from Amoco to me. Academia is in deep trouble too.
The University of California underwent a 20% cut in the last 3 years. I
personally had to face 6 people and tell them they were fired. Toughest
thing this academic ever had to do. I maneuvered another half-dozen to
leave by other means. Some of Berkeley's departments lost over 50% of
their faculty to early retirement programs designed to reduce the budget.
Who's going to teach students and grads (and don't give me that old stuff
that all we do is research--we teach grad students, undergrads, etc., that
require current knowledge obtainable only through research awareness).
Enrollment hasn't changed--in fact, it has gone up as people fear losing
jobs or not getting them. Next year we should have another cut. This time
it will probably be a selective cut. And to the point of this list,
geology departments with their low enrollments are prime candidates for
heavy cutting. Paleontologists, because geologists think all they do is
name fossils and bitch about it, will be (have been) the first to go. This
is true in all public and a lot of private universities that I know of.
Perhaps all this has made me into an old curmudgeon that has little
sympathy for what has gone on in or out of academia.
> They just need to select the next place for their sabatical.
Yes! And I could sure use one about now!
And Rich added:
> Yes, you and Mr. Holtz would have us further fractionate our
> science by having industry develop its own nomenclature relavant
> to the outside world. I reject this idea and it requires
> developing another solution to accomodate the inadequacies of the
> Code. Most real recent, practical, value-added advances in the
> science have come out of industry, and you are asking us to do it
> again!?
Quite the opposite. I reject any nomenclature that is not generally
acceptable, and I think those companies or academics that use their own are
doing themselves a great disservice by isolating themselves from years of
past and future knowledge collected by others. I said don't use the
nomenclature when talking to non-specialists. It works--we do it with
simple-minded students around here, as I pointed out. We don't have
another nomenclature we hide from them, we just don't get into the detailed
bs until they are interested enough to take the time to understand. Who
are you trying to talk to and why do they need to know all the taxa,
synonyms, and other systematic wreakage?
Yes, I know that micropaleontology has added billions of dollars, pounds,
yen, pesos, marks, francs, etc to the world's economy. That has been
wonderful and I tell people about it all the time (without using
nomenclature). All non-geologists I tell about this have never heard about
applied paleo or micro either. We really went wrong here years ago!
Industry has been adding value and knowledge in paleontology since at least
1918 in America, Russia, and Poland. They mostly did it with LinNom, too,
because later users could build on it no matter where in the world it was
done!
What do you mean by the Code? You and I have a communications problem
because our nomenclature is screwed up. What I mean is that set of rules
and recommendations on how to keep names straight so we can use them. The
names can be anything--LinNoms, numbers, databases, anything you want. But
we all have to do it in the same way or it will be meaningless--that is the
purpose of the Code. I think you object to LinNom, rather than the Code.
Read it and see if I am correct, but omit the references to the LinNom. I
don't care about that either, if something else suitable comes up that will
also incorporate the 200+ years of info tied up in LinNom.
What are the inadequacies? Tell me page numbers or article numbers in your
copy so we address specifics.
If you made this case in 1949 instead of 1994, then we'd still be using
Globigerina for all the planktics which have revolutionized biostratigraphy
in many parts of the world. I use this example because the development of
planktic systematics and biostrat initially came largely out of the
practical, value-added world of industry. It was the description of
multitudes of planktic species by people all over the world, mostly
following the RULES of the code, that allowed it to happen. Oh, yes, many
described species turned out to be synonomous with others, but it sure
worked!
> I regard Paleonet as being a family discussion. Things that we discuss
>here should never be carried to the outside.
I assume so too, but this discussion is already well beyond the family. It
has been dealt with lately in Geotimes by Warren Allmon, Boltovskoy
publicized it in 1965, I did likewise in 1981, Loeblich and Tappan did it
in GSA Bull. in 1963 or 4, a bunch of us just did it at the SF AGU meeting,
and many others have as well at different times. It's no secret! But we
should keep the present discussion within the group until we reach some
kind of consensus on what paleo is and where it is going. This will be
difficult because we have applied people, like you Rich, who see things one
way, and basic people, like me, who see things another way. Actually, I
understand what applied paleo is all about and I assume that Rich
understands the objectives of basic research, in spite his comments.
> The Code has everything to do with this stuff. It provides us
> with rules, but no traffic cop--to pick up on your analogy.
> Don't rules have to be enforceable? Everytime we have a
> taxonomic accident, there are no taxonomic police there to make
> the offender clean up the wreckage. Instead we are left with the
> wreckage there as sort of a monument to chaos and around it we
> build bridges and bypasses. Everytime we travel that route we
> must look at that wreckage and take the detours and bridges to
> get around it, unnecessarily complicating our travel path and
> delaying our arrival. What's worse is: Wreckages beget
> wreckages.
This is where Rich and I really disagree. We all enforce the rules by
accepting or rejecting the work. The offender doesn't have to clean up the
wreakage, we will do it as the science progresses. Once it's cleaned up,
we don't ever have to look at it again. Take the planktics again. Few of
us go back to Cushman, Bolli or Loeblich anymore. Their works were
stepping stones that have been superseded by later work. It is the later
work that we refer to most of the time. Also, as I pointed out in 1981,
the monumental cleanups, like the Treatise on forams, are demonstrably
positive influences because now others can use it to move more rapidly
ahead. That IS the scientific method in action! It works that way in all
disciplines. Each wreck or cleanup is a hypothesis that was further tested
and discarded. When you stop doing that, you stop doing science. So close
you eyes when you see a wreck and get on down the information superhighway
(in the old and new sense).
> Re: To stabilize nomenclature is to stop progress.
> Surely you do not mean this. As we enter the 21st century, we
> must stabilize our datasets. If we are constantly sanitizing our
> databases because Joe Blow decides to bust up a perfectly good
> concept into 10 fragmentary ideas, then our focus is on
> maintaining not applying. We can't lick ourselves forever.
I certainly did mean it, as I note above. What do you mean by stabilize
our databases? Don't add to them? Who makes that judgement? We do, I
believe, by examining Joe Blow's concepts and accepting them or rejecting
them. And I'd accept them if I did not have very good reason to reject
them, because if we exclude them by stabilizing, then we may well miss out
later on when he proved correct. That's what happened to planktics, not
only with Cushman, but most of the rest of us that worked on them later.
The dawn of the 21st Cent. proves that we have done very well indeed, as we
now can finely divide the last 100 million years or so into units as fine
as a few 10K years with them. Further systematic work might even improve
that, although I'd guess we're about done with that job.
All databases I know of are evolving things. They change all the time as
new info becomes available. Or should.
Surely we must be talking about different things in all this. Or maybe an
applied paleontologist who is successful with what is available doesn't
need to add anymore. I could understand that. But my job is different.
The university (to say nothing of NSF) tells me I am supposed to discover
new knowledge, not apply old knowledge. Both have extreme merit, and
micropaleontology, along with molecular biology, is one of the foremost
examples of the worth of both approaches and how they have been integrated
between both groups. I am sure that Rich, if he is worth his salt, has
discovered new knowledge as well as applied old. I admit that I break my
university's policy once in a while and do some applied stuff too (not
consulting, so I added no value to me personally--s...).
> Re: But it ain't science.
> I couldn't disagree more. Science is not exclusive to academic
> environments. As I have said earlier, most of the practical
> value-added advancements in our science have come out of
> industry.
I knew that would get a rise! All industrial paleontologists object to
this statement, which is not original with me (Henry Menard said it
specifically about geology in 1971). Clearly industry uses science and
advances science within its own framework. What I said was " Consultants
and company scientists that cannot publish or allow their data and
interpretations to be shared are not part of the scientific community. .
. . . I only ask that . . . they publish their data and hypotheses so I
know what they are talking about and have a shot at improving them."
Communication through publication is a requirement of membership in the
scientific community. If your boss won't let you communicate outside the
company, you can't be a member of the community, and therefore it ain't
science ('cause the scientific method requires communication). I'd never
say you weren't scientific or didn't practice science in part at least.
But I beg you to talk to the rest of us about your discoveries--we'd all be
much better off.
I'm sure that we will need to show our monetary value to society--to its
detriment. What if Curie, to use an old example, had to show value-added?
What if Bagg had to do it with microfossils? What if lots of basic
researchers whose work later turned to gold had to demonstrate value at the
start? Simple answer--we wouldn't know a lot about a whole bunch of very
important things. I'd suggest that studies of dinosaurs, the first
animals, the first fossils, and lots of the things you read about in paleo
today have absolutely no value-added dollarwise, but are extremely
important sources of knowledge that has lasting value of a different sort.
> It is clear to me, and a conclusion of the SEPM
> Research Confernce on Paleontology in the 21st Century in
> Snowbird, research in the next century will have to show its
> value to societal and human need to be funded. We're there in
> industry, and have been for many years. It is hard for me to see
> how some parts of paleontology are adding value.
Too bad I missed that Snowbird meeting because I would have objected
loudly, as you can guess, to any suggestion that we move too far to applied
paleontology or any other science. It is always hard in most research to
find value-added in all areas of research. I remember that during the
Vietnam war, some researcher in pyschology was made a laughing stock by
some of our politicians for studying "how decisions are made in small
groups". Seemed to me that with Pres Johnson and a few of his buddies
deciding about that war, that this was an extremely important research
topic. I never did find out if it was cut, but I bet it was. That's one
reason we still have so many crummy decisions made by small groups--or
maybe they turn out to be even better decisions than those made by
individuals or large groups. Be nice to know how to do it best, and our
put-down researcher might actually have known.
Well, I am sure glad that Shell did not cut Mike Styzen off after all. I
really like his comments, because it shows that this cynical basic
researcher shares a good deal in common with an applied, value-added
paleontologist!
I think I could have written another boring, perhaps useless, research
paper in the time I spent here. I might add that my own assessment of my
work is that I have far greater impact with the hundreds of students that I
contact here than I do with the few paleontologists that read my research
papers. Doesn't bother me a bit, either. Someday those papers might be
discovered by some applied guy who can use the info, or maybe they will
simply languish forever in the pages of obsolete journals. I had fun, I
learned far more than each of them shows, and I passed that on to others,
for better or worse. Believe it or not, I am happy!
Jere
Jere H. Lipps
Professor, Department of Integrative Biology
Director, Museum of Paleontology
University of California at Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720
510-642-9006 fax 642-1822
jlipps@ucmp1.berkeley.edu
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