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>This is an interesting way to ponder on the future of paleontology, >but I believe it misses the mark on considering some very important >needs. The first reaction in reading the document posted below is >that the group is concerned primarily in talking about generalities: >generalities of image, generalities of status, generalities of >research goals and generalities of application to other aspects of >science and society. We are guided to think of 'big picture' and >theory types of inquiry, to the exclusion of working on the specific >or becoming specialists with a reservoir of expertise on certain >groups of fossils. However, problems of research are not resolved by >generalists or theoreticians, who can suggest or persuade but do not >resolve. Progress in understanding the fossil record comes from the >work of specialists who provide the data needed to test ideas. The >development of tools like databases does not alter the basic way >science advances. I would like to see some specific example of this advanced before I would believe it. It my feeling, after over 20 years of reading scientific literature and talking with other scientists, that specialists are not the primary motive force of science. Specialists tend to be analysts in the strictest sense of the word. I.e., they are good at breaking things down to see how they work. This is, to be sure, an important facet of the scientific process, but it does not represent its most creative aspect. The credibility of Darwin's ideas was based on his own exhaustive analytical work (as well as that of many others), but his genius is generally acknowledged to lie in his synthetic achievements. He was able to marshal a tremendous amount of disparate data in order to distill a principle out of it. This was not the behavior of a specialist. I will not name contemporary colleagues whose synthetic work has impressed me (because I don't want to embarrass them), but in my own field of paleoceanography I found that the "idea people" have generally been folks who have a broad understanding biostratigraphy, sedimentology, geophysics, geochemistry, and oceanography. >There seems to be little place in the new paleontological order for >specialists. There seems to be little opportunity for people who do >desire to become specialists. The funding mechanisms are not there >to support such research, at the training or the career research >level, so there will be no professional positions for them to obtain >if they search for employment. All of our institutions now consider >that research is important only if it is capable of generating >outside funding. Generalists may be able to gain employment, but we >end up being an army of generals with few or no private soldiers to >support them. If specialists are people who primarily produce data without much apparent attempt to relate their data to either basic questions of their field or, more ambitiously, the basic questions of another field, then no, specialists are not going to find a place. >Another matter to consider is the increasing marginalization of >paleo in the overall research efforts of science. In the example >mentioned by Roy - paleoclimate - this research realm is mostly >controlled by the geochemists. Some of these geochemists are 'stealth paleontologists'. This is particularly true of foraminifer specialists who decided to buy a stable isotope mass spectrometer sometime in the 70s or 80s. There are a long list of these, but they are admittedly in middle age. In my experience, few American stable isotope geochemists under the age of 45, have more than a cursory familiarity with the details of foraminifer identification, stratigraphy, or ecology. > In the area of evolution, where paleo ought to be dominant, the >research realm is dominated by molecular biologists and cladistic >biologists. True. Although many molecular biologists in their 40s and 50s started out as organismic level biologists, but were persuaded to embrace the molecular/biochemical line of inquiry either in grad school, as post-docs or as desperate assistant professors. > In the realm of age determination, the traditional foundation for >paleontology, biostratigraphers are increasingly being pushed aside >as geologists use inferred dating (seismic records, etc.) or >interpolated dating based on assumed positions of stage or series >boundaries in strat sections. In the deep-sea community there is a group, led by Nick Shackleton, who have been "tuning" the record by matching wiggles in the geophysical and geochemical records to templates generated by assumptions about historical variations in insolation/orbital geometry. These wiggles are actually anchored in "real time" using microfossil datums, mostly nannofossil events, but some foraminifer events where the nannos are thin. The initial dates for these are, of course, interpolated from the magnetic reversal record. Nearly the entire Neogene has been tuned, as well as parts of the Paleogene and even the Cretaceous. There is work for paleontologists to do, but they must learn to talk to people in other communities and collaborate. If paleontologists are going to "dominate" any particular field, then they are going to have to be the one's who see the big picture and bring together all the specialists to do the work. Sincerely, Bill -- --------------------------------------------------- William P. Chaisson Adjunct Assistant Professor Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences University of Rochester Rochester, NY 14627 607-387-3892
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