Re: Predictions for the future!?! (posted for P. Willis)

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Date: Fri, 8 Sep 1995 19:50:57 +1000
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To: paleonet-owner@nhm.ac.uk
From: pwillis@ozemail.com.au (Paul Willis)
Subject: Re: Predictions for the future!?!

>The university academic year is beginning again in N. America (groan!)
>though here in the U.K. we still have another month of "summer" to go
>(yeah!). Since there are undoubtedly a lot of new graduate students
>wandering about asking themselves "What should I do for my thesis," as well
>as a fair number of graduate advisors wondering "What should I have John
>Smith & Jane Doe do for their theses," it might be fun to speculate on what
>paleontology's "next big thing" might be. While lots of research programs
>always go on side-by-side in our science major themes do take hold from
>time to time. The 70's are remembered by many as the decade of punctuated
>equilibrium while the 80's will be remembered as the decade of mass
>extinctions (no pun intended). So far, the 90's seem unformed to me. If
>anything, the early 90's saw a continued popular interest in mass
>extinctions. My hunch is that the focus is shifting, though I'm not at all
>sure where it will end up. There seems to be lots of general interest in
>paleoecology right now, but, so far as I can tell, no well-defined and
>really new paleoecological research program has emerged. Nevertheless, my
>(un)educated guess right now is that paleoecology (in some form) will be
>the new focus of attention. Personally, I'd like to see more studies of
>morphology and ecology combined within an explicitly phylogenetic context
>as a way of really understanding biotic response to long-term environmental
>change, but I have little hope that this will emerge as a dominant theme
>for the multitudes.  Anybody else care to gaze into their crystal ball and
>offer any predictions?
>
>
>Norm MacLeod
>
>

My prediction for the future follows closely to Norms but for a
fundementally different reason. I agree that paleoecology, particularly
with respect to long-term environmental changes, will be the focus of
future research but it will not be a "pure research" driven inquiry. It
will be one of pragmatism. In both Europe and here in Australia (and
probably in the US as well but I am not sure) research dollars (or pounds)
are being dished out according to the somewhat arbitrary criterion of
"immediate returns", there must be a foreseeable financial return on
research dollars spent. Unfortunately, in most area of palaeontology, it is
very difficult to demonstrate an immediate (or even an eventual) financial
return on research dollars. One possible exception is the area of
paleoecology with respect to the development of modern ecosystems and past
eco-crises in the hope of better understanding modern environmental
problems. Initially, this shift will manifest its self in the somewhat
cynical but pragmatic rewriting of grant applications to construe
previously exisiting research programs as having some environmental merit
(when they probably do not), but eventually a segment of the
palaeontological community will be forced to turn to the dark side of
capitalism (is this Marx or Star Wars?) and actually develop
palaeontological research programs that address the needs of modern
environmental questions. I don't think this is a bad thing, in fact it will
be quite beneficial and it will have a much wider flow-on effect through
out the palaeontological community.

Apologies in advance to any one out there already on the path I have
indicated, I am speaking in generalities and I do not wish to denigrate
anyones research.

Cheers, Paul

pwillis@ozemail.com.au