[NHCOLL-L:1902] Re: Protecting collections by raising the perceived status of systema tics

[Sean Barry]

On Thu, 17 Apr 2003 carabid at mpm.edu wrote:

> administrators. The lists could go on and on. But university administrators
> do not understand or at least do not support in many instances collections.
> I think this is because the administrators and scientists in other
> disciplines do not have a high opinion about systematics.

It's closer to home than that--at most institutions of higher learning
these days such classical major programs as zoology and botany have been
redistributed into new majors that were once just a part of the larger
picture.  Way too many students are now finishing bachelor's degrees in
biology without ever hearing of "systematics," and in some institutions
perhaps without even hearing of "evolution," let alone ecology or natural
history.  I'd like to believe that people in that predicament are at least
aware of the existence and legitimacy of these areas as fields of study,
but unfortunately my experience with the past two decades' crop of
"biology majors" has been that they aren't, unless they actually completed
courses in those areas as a major requirement or because of interest.
Classical curricula that encouraged a broad education to include a
reasonable sampling of all subdisciplines have been dismissed as "a mile
wide and an inch deep," and we're now in an age of "cell/molecular
biology," "population biology," "evolution and ecology," and even
"developmental biology" undergraduate majors.  That would be OK if each of
those majors had to complete a few courses from each of the others, but by
and large they don't. (And I feel as strongly that natural history people
should be well grounded in physiology and cell biology as I do that cell
biologists need to know evolution and ecology in fine detail).

A "human geneticist" (actually a 1990 physiology doctorate whose
undergraduate training was a mile deep and an inch wide and who had only
vaguely heard of evolution) with whom I sometimes work wandered not long
ago into my lab (where I do molecular genetics), and noticed a copy of the
American Society of Mammalogists book "Biology of the Heteromyidae"
(kangaroo rats and related groups, a very hefty tome) on my shelf.  First
he asked in his most refined patronizing tone "what is a heetermeedee?,
followed by "who on earth cares about them?"  After a brief inspection of
the book, he declared in all honest amazement "Someone spent time on
this!,"  then muttered "a complete waste of paper."  Finally the light
switched on in his head and he asked the inevitable question: "...where do
these people get their funding?"  and upon being told "NSF" he exploded
with righteous Proxmirian anger that "our taxes are funding this BS?!"
This from a tenured professor of biology in the University of California,
someone who teaches biology to university-level undergrads and runs a
well-funded (by NIH) research program in biology, someone who is quite
prominent in the public's view of the biological sciences these days.
He's not an administrator, not a politician, not even a physicist.  Where
I come from (the University of California) we used to call that attitude
"limited thinking," but that seems to have become "cutting edge" thinking
these days--trouble is that more and more decisions about research
priorities and funding of same are coming from meetings of limited
thinkers who purport to be scientists in the same field (biology).  If
people widely perceived as cutting-edge biologists don't see the value and
legitimacy of what we do as biologists ourselves (and actively fight it at
some institutions), how are we to sell the importance of our work and our
facilities to politicians, administrators, and the public?  Not only is
this quasi-bigoted indifference bad for museums, it's bad for science and
it's bad for the species.  But it's the way things are being done these
days, and it's a formidable barrier.  Sad to say, many of "today's
biologists" may not be our friends.

Sean Barry