Brian Switek is a science writer who focuses on paleontology, evolution, and the history of science. He also blogs for Smithsonian magazine's Dinosaur Tracking.
On the 31st of May, 1984, the late evolutionary theorist John Maynard Smith appraised the field of paleontology in the journal Nature. The report was a critical summary of a series of lectures Stephen Jay Gould had given at Cambridge, and Gould considered it "the kindest and most supportive critical commentary I have ever received." Smith wrote;
The attitude of population geneticists to any palaeontologist rash enough to offer a contribution to evolutionary theory has been to tell him to go away and find another fossil, and not to bother the grownups.
In the last ten years, however, this situation has changed by the work of a group of palaeontologists, of whom Gould has been a leading figure. ...
The Tanner lectures were an entertaining and stimulating occasion. The palaeontologists have too long been missing from the high table. Welcome back.
This welcome to the evolutionary "high table" has had a strong effect on paleontologists. Smith's statement was both complimentary and condescending, and much hand-wringing still goes on over whether the contributions of paleontologists are truly appreciated by geneticists, molecular biologists, and members of disciplines more traditionally thought to be the inheritors of the great Modern Evolutionary Synthesis of the mid-20th century.
I would argue, however, that the focus on reaching Smith's "high table" is not very productive. It assumes that paleontology had to (or still must) rise to some level of discourse determined entirely by other disciplines. What is more important is the broader context in which Smith made his statement. The discipline of paleontology underwent a series of major changes throughout the 20th century, and the new volume The Paleobiological Revolution, edited by David Sepkoski and Michael Ruse, is essential to understanding why modern paleontology is much more than just the collection and cataloging of dusty old bones.
During the past month Andy Farke of The Open Source Paleontologist has been considering the rise (and fall) of paleontology-oriented mailing lists (like the Dinosaur Mailing List and the VRTPALEO Discussion List). These lists are good for a lot of things, like quickly disseminating news to a large audience of specialists or requesting papers/information, but more and more in-depth discussions of paleontology are moving onto blogs. Andy has already covered some of the major points, but I wanted to add a few thoughts of my own.
A somewhat tamarin-like restoration of Ganlea megacania. By Mark A. Klingler of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.
It seems that almost every time a new fossil primate is announced the first question everyone asks is "Is it one of our ancestors?" Nevermind that it is all but impossible to identify direct ancestors and descendants in the vertebrate fossil record (including primates). If the fossil can be construed to be a human ancestor it gets plenty of attention and if it is not the reports are left to wither. For a primate fossil to be seen, it must be promoted, and this often leads overblown reports. Such is the case with a new fossil anthropoid from Myanmar described by an international team of scientists today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
When I fired up my computer this morning I was greeted by attention-grabbing headlines that proclaimed "Early Man Evolved in Burma", "Human, Ape Ancestor Hails From Asia", and "Rival Fossil Challenges 'Missing Link.'" The hype was not quite as intense as that which surrounded the lemur-like "Ida", but all this hullabaloo suggested that this new primate would tell us something significant about our own origins within the primate family tree.
Earlier this week I had the pleasure of answering a few questions for the Paw Talk blog about dinosaurs, blogging, and kittens. You can check it out here (and many thanks to Ava for inviting me to participate!).
At the end of the day today the University of Wyoming Geological Museum is going to be closed. The museum and the paleontologists who worked there are victims of state budget cuts, and the spirited effort to keep the museum open did not get top-level administrators to change their minds. The closure of the museum is still a shock to paleontologist Brent Breithaupt, who worked hard to make it what it is now. He recently told the Laramie Boomerang:
I can't fathom the concept that I'm not going to be coming in every day to see the dinosaurs. ... I can't fathom the concept that the dinosaurs won't be there for other people to see; to see the little kids come in and be excited for the dinosaurs. I can't fathom the concept that this museum will not be there for them.
The museum will not be there for professors, university students, or state and federal agencies who regularly made use of it and Breithaupt's expertise, either.
What will become of the museum? It is difficult to say. Efforts are underway to secure private funding to reopen it sometime in the near future, but that is going to be a difficult task. You can keep up with the effort to re-open the museum at the Keep Laramie Dinos site.
