RE: paleonet Re: Geobiology

["David Kopaska-Merkel" <davidkm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Maybe it's a lack of jobs for geobiologists. Perhaps Biology Depts. say "Ew,
a geologist," and Geology Depts. have a similar reaction. If a geobiologist
can't find a good university teaching job, he or she will have trouble doing
research and training more geobiologists. I am speculating here, but jobs
are scarce in general right now, which would exacerbate any tendency of this
sort.

David

"We have met the enemy and he is us."
					-- Walt Kelly

David C. Kopaska-Merkel
Geological Survey of Alabama
P.O. Box 869999
Tuscaloosa AL 35486-6999
(205) 349-2852
fax 349-2861
www.gsa.state.al.us

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"FIF-teen ton of Bituminous coal."

> -----Original Message-----
> From: paleonet-owner@nhm.ac.uk [mailto:paleonet-owner@nhm.ac.uk]On
> Behalf Of N. MacLeod
> Sent: Thursday, October 24, 2002 11:33 AM
> To: paleonet@nhm.ac.uk
> Subject: paleonet Re: Geobiology
>
>
> Etymology is OK, but I was hoping to take the deeper temperature of
> people's feelings toward geobiology. From the responses thus far it
> seems that the term (and perhaps the subject) has little resonance
> with PaleoNet subscribers? Is that correct? Do people just not know
> much about geobiology or have they considered it and decided that
> geobiology really doesn't have much to offer them?
>
> The following is taken from the most comprehensive description I've
> come across thus far.
>
> At its heart, geobiological research merges disciplines in the earth
> and biological sciences, including, but not restricted to
> microbiology, microbial ecology, plant physiology, microbial ecology,
> plant physiology, molecular biology, paleontology, early evolutionary
> ecology, mineralogy, geochemistry, oceanography, and astrobiology.
>
> That's a pretty tall order and somewhat heavily weighted to
> biological subdisciplines. It would seem the default option is for
> geobiology to primarily attract biological contributions and develop
> into a biological discipline. Personally, I've got no axe to grind,
> one way or the other. Stratigraphical paleontology survived
> introduction of the paleobiology paradigm and I'm quite sure both
> will be around long after geobiology sorts itself out (which it
> will). I suppose my question is whether anyone sees any advantage for
> paleontology to assimilate geobiology the way paleobiology was
> assimilated. Geobiology's current practitioners (e.g., Andy Knoll)
> clearly have offered paleontology an invitation to join them. If the
> majority of paleontology isn't interested, OK (Andy and his
> colleagues will survive and prosper). But, as a (currently)
> disinterested observer, I'm curious as to why geobiology seems to be
> a such a non-starter.
>
> Norm MacLeod
>
>
>