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Hello all: Here in my country we are facing more or less the same issues: Palaeontology becomes more and more popular, but palaeontologist have less and less jobs, and Science Faculties are loossing students. I've heard students at our University saying to each other: "Yes, I'd also liked to study Palaeontology, but after one semester cours in General Palaeontology I've no more interest on it". I'm confident in the capacities and interest of their professors in General Palaeontology, but it is clear since long ago that the usual scientific and academic point of view for teaching Palaeontology dislikes most of the students. Disappointed students probaby become future detractors of the interest of Palaeontology for the society. The controversy "evolution vs. creation" is important for Applied Palaeontology. Research in fossils are attractive and interessants for all kind of people. Every village and city can be interested in protecting their fossils and palaeontological sites, when they found people able to do it. Young Palaeontology postgraduates are looking for a possible future in the social difussion of our Science. Ideas, fossils and sites are very interesting offers for schools, families and other social groups. However, jobs in a growing amount of geological parks, field museums and visitor's centers in fossil sites are mostly taken by tourist guides or archaeologists. I agree that people and society are changing; therefore our approach for practicing and communicating Palaeontology to the society must also change. Also, we must defend our expertise field to study and protect fossils and explain our results. Fossils are fascinating objects, and palaeontologists the authorized experts for finding, excavating and conveying them to the society, as well as medical information is transmitted only by medical physicians. Other kind of experts must restrict themselves to their field. Amateur societies are wellcome when oriented by professionals. Professional Palaeontology also includes deontological agreements and the pursuit of incorrect practics. All the best At 04:24 PM 1/12/04 -0500, you wrote: >Content-Type: text/plain; > charset="iso-8859-1" >X-MIME-Autoconverted: from 8bit to quoted-printable by rhea.uakron.edu id iB1L8heb032474 > >Dear All— > >WOW! Having just returned from a holiday, I opened my email and found >amazing and energetic discussions on evolution, the role of medicine in >science and our decline in societal memberships. I think that this clearly >shows the all-too-obvious connection between these topics. That is: how our >society sees Science (with a big S) and how they view paleontology. > >While our own scientific colleagues may love dinosaurs from a romantic point >of view, how many of them would be willing to generate a position in >vertebrate paleontology…..or to keep one for that matter, after a >retirement? (see Roy Plotnick’s posting about the UI position attrition) To >me, the variance in science in general, and paleontology in particular, has >increased and those once trained in classical paleontology are now trained >in geochemistry or geobiology. > >In other words, it seems that our science is shifting, but our models stay >the same. People don’t see the relevance of paleontology because a) we don’ >t do a good enough job making ourselves relevant, b) we don’t communicate >well-enough amongst ourselves (with the possible exception of this listserv) >and c) we don’t know where we are going with our discipline (which, by the >way….is under siege by creationists, particularly at the K-12 level, and we >do not even realize it). Thus, we find our numbers declining, like the >bison in North America reported on in this week’s Science (sorry…no musk >oxen….they were bison, which are related…..through evolution……if you >“believe” in that). If people don’t see the relevance of talking about this >from a theoretical standpoint, maybe they will from a practical one. That >is….we are losing numbers, but gaining in popularity among the kiddies. >Why? > >Maybe we need to step back and look at the larger picture. Our young, >emerging paleontologists will live in a different world. What kind of world >will that be? Will the paleodatabase dominate our science? Will something >else? What questions do we have that are relevant to those in our own >field, those in other fields and those in the general public? This time >last year an ostracod made international news (believe it or not) because it >was the first recorded male reproductive organ, and last month, the pigmy H. >erectus was reported from Indonesia. These are things that people seem to >care about. But why? > >I think we need to start asking ourselves: since science is a dynamic >endeavor, are we adapting to the times? Are we changing the landscape? Or >are we just desperately trying to keep up? > >To me, these issues are all so intricately interrelated that it boggles the >mind. > >Respectfully, >Lisa > >~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >Dr. Lisa E. Park, Associate Professor >Department of Geology >Crouse Hall >252 Buchtel Commons >University of Akron >Akron, OH 44325-4101 USA >001-330-972-7633 (phone) >001-330-972-7611 (fax) >lepark@uakron.edu > >Damnant quod non intelligunt >(they condemn what they do not understand) Dra. Nieves López-Martínez Dept. Paleontología, Fac. C. Geológicas Universidad Complutense de Madrid 28040 MADRID (Spain) tel. +34 91 394 4875, fax. +34 91 394 4849 e-mail: lopezmar@geo.ucm.es http://www.ucm.es/info/paleo/personal/nievesl.htm
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