At 10:27 AM 5/17/96 +12, you wrote:
>Can this be true?
>>Quoting from a New Scientist capsule review (p44, Jan96):
>>"There are treasures, however, such as the chapter titled
>'Forgetting', which shows how some science disciplines simply vanish.
>Earthworm taxonomy is his example."
>>The book: "Beginning Again: People and Nature in the New Millennum"
>[sic], by David Ehrenfeld, OUP.
>>Not having seen the book I don't know how he apparently decided the
>last word had been said on earthworm relationships. Granted there
>aren't that many species, but, to compare with the ultimate, human
>taxonomy is a rather lively field at the moment. And would I be
>incorrect in assuming there were never vast numbers of practitioners
>in the field (literally!) anyway?
>>--
>Geoff Read <g.read at niwa.cri.nz>
As one of the people mentioned in the book (and in an excerpt I actually
read) in connection with earthworm taxonomy, I can make two statements
relevant to this thread: 1) The Golden Age of EW taxonomy was probably
1880-1930, and since then there have never been more than a handful of
active researchers worldwide at any one time, the present included; 2) It
did not appear that the author intended to say that the last word had been
uttered because the job was done, only that the subject was in danger of
collapse due to lack of participants. The study of earthworm relationships
has not really made any progress in the last 60 years, with a few exceptions
due to the work of Jamieson.
In general, the point seemed to be that expertise on many obscure and
not-so-obscure groups of organisms and other categories of knowledge is
endangered. Since I am not in a position from which I can train my
successor(s), I tend to agree.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~ Sam James ~
~ Dept. of Biology ~
~ Maharishi Univ. of Mgmt. ~
~ Fairfield, IA 52557 ~
~ sjames at mum.edu ~
~ 515-472-1146 ~
~ Systematics and Ecology ~
~ of Earthworms ~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
