PROFESSIONAL ETHICS AND PRACTICES - COLUMN 171
the increasingly detailed documenta- tion of the Earth’s long history, some geologists declared that geology had to break with other sciences and pursue its own methods as a wholly independent field of inquiry. This aggravation at the impasse with physics is understandable, but it would unfortunately influence the way a generation of geologists were educated.” This led to the American and British rejection of Alfred Wegener’s 1915 arguments for moving continents. Wegener was not a geologist and he was a German. It took more than 50 years for plate tectonics to begin the explanation of continental movement.
Robson points out that there is a new
scientific discipline—evidence-based wisdom—that aims to develop a means of avoiding motivated reasoning. One tech- nique involves rigorously and honestly arguing against yourself. Probe the ways in which you may be wrong. Another is asking a colleague to evaluate your arguments for and against. The goal is to determine whether you are accepting or rejecting evidence because of your own biases or on the merits of the evidence. What is one of your passionate beliefs? How are you letting your passions bias your wisdom?
The continuing relevance of field camp
Peter Megaw, CPG-10227, contribut-
ed the following thoughts on my column on field camp in column 170 (Jan/Feb/ Mar ′19), “‘He or She who sees the most rocks wins’ has long been a catchphrase among geologists that I hope will never go out of style. Although ‘office-based’ geology is
structure, stratigraphy, igneous, miner- alogy, geomorphology, and paleontology that comprise geology. To paraphrase Shirley Mensah, SA-7566, (from col- umn 170)…this is where abstract class- room learning becomes real.
increasingly common, an
office-bound geologist is never going to get the visceral intellectual understand- ing of the rocks that comes from seeing and banging on them. Not having field experience is like trusting your calcula- tor without understanding the math behind the buttons you punch. Perhaps a more apropos geological analogy might be lab-based geo-researchers who don’t have the field savvy to understand the ‘real-rock’ context of the samples they analyze. The geosphere is a marvel- ously complex system with many more degrees of freedom than we can readily comprehend…and we get the first real appreciation of that in field camp. The rocks keep us honest.
“Field camp is where we first learn to ‘listen to the rocks’ (tip of the hat to Spence Titley, CPG-1952) in a compre- hensive manner. No examination of logs, chips, or core will give the same granular feel for the rocks. Field camp is also the first place we put together, as a concep- tual whole, the manifold disciplines…
www.aipg.org
“Making that synthesis is vital to developing integrated geological think- ing. Producing complete geologists with- out field camp is a signal challenge and there should be a special place in Hell for universities that discontinue field camp because of liability concerns. This timid- ity does a near-criminal disservice to the science and their students by producing semi-competent geologists ill-prepared for either academic or industry careers. In contrast, those schools that have maintained or grown field programs of all kinds deserve our active accolades and support, including recommending them to the brightest up-and-coming geoscience students we meet.
“Field camp is just the first step though…throughout our careers we need to continue exposing ourselves to new rocks as well as new interpretations of them. Spence Titley tells us to ‘listen to the rocks’ but James Gilluly also noted that ‘the rocks only answer the questions we ask them,’ so our evolution as geolo- gists requires us to keep developing our field skills because the more rocks we see, the more and better questions we learn to ask.
remarkable
“On a final note, one of the most things about geoscience
compared to other sciences is our col- legiality and openness…just ask anyone who works in a major convention facil- ity which group has the best ambiance at their annual gatherings. I submit this fundamentally stems from being thrown together from dawn to dark in the field and what we learn from each other as we interact on both profes- sional and personal levels. This creates
a sense of community that makes geolo- gists unique among scientists…another ‘secret’ to pass on to the next generation of aspiring geologists!”
Gender and mining education in the 1960s Betty Gibbs is a mining engineer
and geostatistician who has been a colleague and friend for many years. She is featured in a 5:38 minute YouTube video, “Gender and mining education in the 1960s,” an oral his- tory prepared by the Bancroft Library of UC Berkeley,
https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=FVzVGT7EMEE. Betty entered the underground mining indus- try in a time when very few women did. She began her undergraduate career in mining engineering at Virginia Tech in 1960. She moved to Colorado in 1964 and received her BS in mining engineer- ing from the Colorado School of Mines in 1969. Her interview is historically interesting and not that long. Download and view it.
Suggestions for moving towards an internationally
recognized CPD program I’ve posted a webinar, “Suggestions
for moving towards an internation- ally recognized CPD program,” on YouTube,
https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=e7UJemTNfFA. This 31 minute presentation grew out of my frustration at the failure of professional organiza- tions around the world to develop an internationally recognized continuing professional development (CPD) pro- gram. These organizations use similar, although not identical language, and each requires use of a unique report- ing system, often requiring that CPD
Continued on p. 46
Jul.Aug.Sep 2019 • TPG 41
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