From: Jeff Hecht <jeff@jeffhecht.com>
Reply-To: jeff@jeffhecht.com
To: tholtz@geol.umd.edu, frank@blissnet.com, dinoboygraphics@aol.com,
dinosaur@usc.edu
Subject: RE: Stegosaurus preparation photos take two...
Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2005 09:58:23 -0400
At 8:33 AM -0400 4/27/05, Thomas R. Holtz, Jr. wrote:
>And yet time and time again people who don't actually do science (see
earlier posting for definition) are introduced on talk shows
>and such as "paleontologists". Well, no, they aren't. Sorry if that makes
some people feel bad, but I'm not in the "make people feel
>good business"; I'm a scientist.
>
>Science cannot get done without a lot of help. We need administrators to
run institutions and help find funding; preparators to
>clean the specimens (although they may also be researchers in their own
right: see below); artists to illustrate them; editors and
>publishers to run the journals; and most importantly of all, field
workers to help collect the specimens. (And, at some places,
>graduate students to do all the work...) But the administrators, editors,
and publishers don't claim to be paleontologists, and
>those preparators who aren't interested in research are happy to call
themselves preparators. Graduate students rightly and fairly
>call themselves paleontologists in training, as already stated on this
list and in stark contrast to Frank's assertion that the
>professionals somehow believe that paleos are born fully formed ex
nihilo.
>
>Sometimes, I gotta wonder: do nuclear physicists and geochemists and
microbiologists have this same issue...?
>
You touch on a very big and complex matter. There's a continuum of people
involved in science. As a writer, I interpret science for the lay public.
If I wrote a book on paleontology, that would make me an "authority" in the
eyes of the general reader. That would be accurate only in the sense that I
would have to know considerably more than the general reader in order to do
a good job writing about it.
Likewise, the public's notions of what dinosaurs looked like are shaped by
artists as well as paleontologists. We can get a general idea of what a
sauropod or T rex looks like from the bones, but we often turn to artistic
recreations -- worked on by paleontologists, anatomists, and artists (and
people will skills in all three areas) -- to know what the animals really
looked like.
Not everybody has or needs PhDs in paleontology. Modern science is complex,
and no paleontologist is going to know _everything_ about the field. If a
radio station wants a quick description of the latest new dino-bird fossil
that I've just covered for New Scientist, I can be an instant radio expert
for 2 or 3 minutes, and nobody introduces me as a "paleontologist." If I
need more information, I'll call up specialists (like Tom on tyrannosaurs)
to find out more. And if specialists like Tom need more information, they
go to other specialists in areas such as sedimentology and radiometric
dating.
The issue is global, but paleontologists appear particularly sensitive
about it.
--
Jeff Hecht, science & technology writer
jeff@jeffhecht.com; http://www.jeffhecht.com
Boston Correspondent: New Scientist magazine
Contributing Editor: Laser Focus World
525 Auburn St., Auburndale, MA 02466 USA
v. 617-965-3834; fax 617-332-4760