Examination of Witness (Questions 240-241)
Dr Richard Fortey
29 APRIL 2008
Q240 Lord Krebs: If I could just
build on that and ask you to talk a little bit about how the taxonomic
community is appreciated by other scientists in related areas.
You talked earlier on about a caricature of a scientist on one
of the grant-awarding committees who is nice to the taxonomists
in the street but not nice to them when it comes to awarding grants
for taxonomic work. Do you think, just as there is a job to do
to present to the public the significance of taxonomy, taxonomists
could be more effective in making their case to the rest of the
scientific community as they jockey for position in terms of obtaining
research funding?
Dr Fortey: Yes they could have been more effective.
I could have been more effective myself. Quite how you do it is
another question. I would like to think you could get primary
taxonomic studies funded. Quite a lot of projects that I have
had before me as a referee have a taxonomist written into it somewhere
as a co-worker. Taxonomists are, without being in the least pejorative,
generally quite cheap. Nowadays molecular sequencing costs something
but a lot of the equipment we use, the old-fashioned binocular
microscope with a few new widgets, you can do quite well with
that. So a lot of grants that get approved, as I am sure you know,
are ones that apply a major new technique to a problem which requires
the designing and manufacturer of expensive new equipment. I could
mention that some of the taxonomic and palaeontological grants
that have been successful are just like this. For example, quite
recently people have been using the CERN Accelerator to look at
insects hidden inside opaque amber, with tremendous success I
might say. You can practically see the hairs on the legs and you
can apply traditional taxonomy to these creatures. It is quite
expensive because it uses a very expensive piece of kit. The taxonomy
at the end of it is not unimportant, it shows that a particular
family of ants went back to the Crotatius which was not known
before, but if that were the end product of something that I had
applied for as a direct research grant without the CERN Accelerator
coming into it, I do not think that grant would have got very
far.
Q241 Chairman: It sounds as if expensive
taxonomy is easier to get funded than cheap taxonomy.
Dr Fortey: That is probably quite right.
Chairman: I think we have come to the end of
our questions. Thank you, Dr Fortey, you have covered a very wide
spread both in your professional capacity as President of the
Geological Society and the way you describe yourself as an enthusiastic
amateur as well. Thank you very much.
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