Living fossils

[arpan911]

Quite a week for resurrections.

The extinct cougars in Michigan are apparently back. A frog in Columbia thought wiped out by a mysterious fungus has not been wiped out. And French scientists found a species of crustacean that was thought to have become extinct 60 million years ago!

Oh, and a little grove of American Chestnut trees has been discovered after hiding for decades.

You can argue whether this is all collectively good news or bad news, because these are stories about species on the brink, and despite these encouraging signs, studies indicate species extinction is occurring at an alarming rate.

But one thing is clear: Humans have this planet under a microscope like never before.

[kowiamay]

It's probably about time that we started paying more attention to the world around us and the effect we have on it. We are the ones whose actions have the most impact, so we should be aware of the world around us and how we are changing it.

[freakyfreddie]

so how are we gonna do that?

[kowiamay]

In some ways, we already are! I was referring to the comment about us having the world under a microscope. But, I really think we need to bring back the generalists. Scientists are very focused on their particular fields. We need to train people to look at how all of these fields work together. For example, global warming: how much does one scientist actually know about it? So many scientists see what they believe are the results of GW, but very few actually are studying the causes. We need philosopher-scientists who have an understanding of Biology, physics, chemistry, and geology who can really pull it all together to synthesize a better understanding of what is happening. I think it was once called a "liberal arts education"
:)