Looking at these sciencific forums we see two main streams: UFO's and traveling faster than the speed of light. Earth science is limited to some global warming chat whenever somebody mentions Kyoto or something like that. What is it with investigation of the roots. Why is Earth science losing terrain? The more we discover on Earth, the more enigmatic things seem to be. At the expence of IT, the number of students archeology, paleonthology and geology is decreasing. Soon the skills and experience of the old generation is waning when there is no changing of the guard. Dick Mol, a.k.a. Mr Mammoth, one of the worlds most altruistic explorers of the past, is very concerned about that and that's the reason why he has founded Mammuthus Club International. I have the honor and privilege helping him to promote the foundation. Its purpose is to seek and help young Earth science students, especially paleonthology to facilitate their studies, get them involved in field work and let them visit conferences. The foundation may expend that aim when more funds become available. Comments, suggestions, critique are very welcome.
With regards to sciforums: My first suggestion is that part of the problem is that in order to have a decent discussion about all this, you need to have a fairly large amount of learning. Its not just a matter of knowing your minerals and having collected a bundle of them yourself, although thats a good place to start. If you go look at the maths or physics forums, you find quite a few people who know their equations inside out and can explain it all in laymans terms. Whereas in the earth sciences etc, there dont seem to be so many people. In order to really discuss the interesting stuff, you relaly need a decent education and degree level knowledge. ( not always, but it helps) Which by definition is something few of us are going to have. See, you say at the bottom there, help young paleontology students, which is exactly my point with regards to this forum, youd have to be a young paleonotology student to want to discuss earth sciences. But on the subject of encouraging more youngsters into it, thats an entirely welcome development, and a very necessary one. It paralells problems here in the UK, with less of the population taking up science than ever before, to quite a worrying extent. In my opinion, part of this is due to the very success of the sciences, which renders them both invisibly part of everyday life, and yet incredibly abstracted from it. Lets face it, how much science is easily fiddled about with by yourself anymore? Quite a bit, but not as much as there used to be. (its partly been removed due to health and safety worries) Also, science is percieved as harder than other subjects, I'm not sure why, but that relates it into the general accusations of dumbing down that are current today. Furthermore, the fact that much of the west lives in a "post industrial" world means that sciences are not so relevant. When you know people who work in laboratories, does that not make it more likely you will consider it as a viable and interesting career? The teaching in school is also quite clearly at fault to a large degree, and thats enough for a whole new thread. Then theres the media influence, the increase in tv watching etc. "The more we discover on Earth, the more enigmatic things seem to be. " Interesting statement. To someone like me who is interested in it, it looks more like we are pinning many things down better than ever, theres always more work needing done, eg the effects of water on plate boundaries or suchlike, but the major problems look to be solved (except for that one about why Hawaii etc exist- hots spots or what?) or nearly completely proven. That thread about 10,000 years ago and carbon isotopes is a case in point, its interesting, yet a comparatively small matter. Now, small matters are the meat and potatos of science, yet one cannot help but feel a certain restriciton in what is left to do. Another point is- what kind of life and career is available after a degree in this sort of subject? A good one? Are there enough employment opportunities outside university? Are university depts getting enough funding? In my own experience, with a chemistry degree, there arent enough realjobs to go around, theres quite a few if you are hideoulsy narrowly experienced, but your basic graduate has little chance of finding anything, in part due to our de-industrialisation. Anyway, if you got this far, congratulations in reading my wee essay, its been on a topic I have been mulling over for ages.
OK, ill have a greater look when i have more time. But at the same time I think this backs up my point about depth of knowledge, and how many of us are lacking it. Sadly enough, you are fully right. It does not serve a direct economical purpose, so why bother :bugeye: I know more than one post-graduate in earth sciences, having a totally different job. What's the answer to this? [/QUOTE] I know many chemistry graduates with this problem as well. I htink its partly due to not enough specialisation on their part, and more importantly, as you say, theer is little direct economic gain. IN fact, myuniversity, back when i was in first year 8 years ago, doing 1st year gelogy modules, amalgamated the geology department with the geography one and tried to say it wouldnt damage geology teaching. (Although their both earth sciences in a way, I think this is a good example of running things down to save money and narrow the research and choice available. ) Now this was a geology dept with a reputation going back well over a century, with as far as I could see good, important lecturers, the small problem being that it was doing so much teaching it didnt have so much time for research. This means, in the UK, that they get less money cos they dont do research, where more of the money is. Ultimately the earth sciences need public money, because much of what they are interested in is of public importance, and of long term untility. But does this make any difference? nope. I cant think of any short term help, I'm a little pessimistic just now.
That's something you could say every few decades. Some paradigms are reinforced by new evidence, hence, everybody is happy and new research will only be beneficial. Of course, that's just believing in fairy tales. The earth is large and complicated enough to leave us with enough riddles for the coming decenia. You can reach some kind of probability about current ideas and their degree of correctness, but the feeling of "we've pinned it nearly down" is illusionary, ie you're just settled in today's "modern" ideas. You'd be surprised how many circular reasonings are created because of that.
And so is this club only for "earth science" students? What about other disciplines? What about students of chemistry, biology, horticulture, soil science, glaciology, oceanography? So long as they have an interest in applying their field to the pursuit of study of the mammoths or megafauna?
