My self education mission (help?)

[Hat]

Hello. I've been on a sort of self education mission since about last Thanksgiving. I didn't plan on starting it. It just happened. I was at a library, bored, and so I picked up a book on feathered dinosaurs and the origin of birds. I decided to return to the library the next couple of days to finish it. Since then I've read something like 26 or 28 nonfiction science based books. Currently I'm reading Annals of the Former World - a Pulitzer Prize winner by John McPhee. It's good, but not quite sciencey enough for me. The author doesn't go into much depth in many areas of natural history. There's a lot of history of discovery, history of the science, and descriptions of what color eyes this or that geologist had, etc... I'm also reading Paleozoic Fossil Plants by Bruce Stinchcomb. More of a picture book than anything else. Sort of difficult to get a reading flow going with that one. Most pages are just pictures with long captions. 

 

My favorite book so far has been The Story of Earth by Robert M. Hazen. Plenty of Earth history depth there in an understandable package.

 

If I wanted to go into deeper paleontological or geological study without getting lost in technical jargon, where should I look? Someone in another thread mentioned doctoral theses. Is there a database where such writing is available? Is this a good idea for educating ones self? 

 

I've gotten to where I don't want to just keep going with these sort of pop-science nonfiction books. The information I'm gleaning is becoming a bit redundant. What should I do, force myself to read books that I barely understand? Any ideas? Recommendations? The trouble with self education is that there's no advisor or instructor. I'm all on my own!

 

This is too many questions for one thread, but what about hard sciences. I know I'm deficient in math, physics, chemistry, trig, calculus, statistics, probabilities, and so on. Maybe it's time I quit messing around with stuff that's "fun" to read and buckle down on these subjects? I'd probably get some sense of accomplishment out of that. I go to the quiet downstairs reference rooms of the public library to study. 

 

Thank you for taking the time to read my self edumacation  thread. I very much appreciate any suggestions on how I should handle this journey.

 

Scott

 

[Kane]

Just some preliminary thoughts to assist in your journey:

 

If the technical terms and concepts are a bit too heady at this stage, I would probably only consult dissertations when needed. Dissertations are not generally written with a sophisticated general audience in mind, but for other specialists who will judge the work on the basis of its contribution to the discipline. These tend to be very specific rather than generalist in nature, focused on an uber-specific issue, and it is not uncommon that these become the basis from which peer-reviewed academic articles are carved, if not standalone academic books. Still, if you wish to soldier through dissertations, most university libraries do maintain a database of these online if they digitize them (many of them do now).

 

Lifelong learning is its own reward, so when it comes to goals, you might keep them flexible to allow for surprise and itinerant reading. In terms of specific texts to read that are not for a too-wide general audience (such as pop-sci genre stuff), my advice is to research which universities offer a program in paleontology, and to begin at first-year level. Look at the syllabi for the courses in the module progression and pay attention to the required and recommended reading lists. Textbooks are not generally the place to introduce brand new research, but to survey the field with the objective of introducing concepts, terminology, and zones of debate in the discipline. Textbooks, when written well, "walk" students through the main ideas, while also furnishing them with additional readings for more engaged interest. You can obtain textbooks through university bookstores or through online ordering.

 

Another good source of information and learning can be government publications, and particularly those that focus on regional geology and geography. The USGS, for instance, has plenty of freely available documents that you can download. They will use specialist terms you might not recognize, so it may be a good idea to jot down a vocabulary list of terms you can look up. 

 

In terms of being on your own, there are some advantages with respect to managing your own time and expectations according to the pace you want to learn at as opposed to drilling through an established degree program. That being said, you are not entirely alone: we have a few paleontology experts here who work in academia. Posing questions here (as you already do) is a good practice 

[Fossildude19]

Hey Scott,

 

Honestly, I read a ton of PDF's that are available free online.

I never went to college, but have probably learned enough to get me at least an associates degree in Fossils.  

The issue with the terminology is fairly easy to overcome, with a bit of google help. It's funny, scientists use weird terminology to say mundane things. 

Anterior for front, Ventral for bottom, dorsal for back, posterior for back, etc.,  etc. 

Don't let  technical terminology sway you from reading up on things. 

 

The hardest part, as Kane mentions, is figuring out what you want to read about.  From a general perspective, it's good to read up on taphonomy, geology, and anatomy. 

But you can narrow those down to specific interests of yours as well. I tend to read about the formations I fossil hunt at, and the things I collect. 

I've gained some knowledge of other things, through reading and participation here on the Forum. 

Good luck with your journey.  It's good to learn something new everyday.  

Regards, 

 

[doushantuo]

often it's about finding stuff like the article below .It's knowing what's good and what's not,and the finding of it often boils down to luck 

I am posting this just as an example.

I ask one simple question: if you want to understand brachiopod lophophores,ecology,terminology,the whole shebang,can you do better than this article?

 

rudwickfb01626.x.pdf

TIP : avoid articles literature with cladistics.That subdiscipline is  a whole different ballgame.

It has become so laden with jargon that it often seems to descend into sheer gibberish.

Everybody sees a synapomorphy in every detail,with a concomitant increase in voluminous data manipulation 

Try at least to also understand stratigraphy and facies analysis/sedimentology,and in general the pitfalls of the geological record.

And i think it can help the collecting effort,for all of those you who collect.

(Kane always checks his lithologies/stratigraphy/general regional geology)

And:do not underestimate this: try to develop a firm grasp on the temporal and spatial scales that are important/releveant in the biological ("natural")sciences.

 

[doushantuo]

Also: do not diss the past.

There is a tendency to consider only the very latest as funky and cool.

It's not for nothing that W*ley,Else**** and S***nger have paywalls going back to the 1880's.

Yes,you read that correctly

AND: DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE WHAT'S available online(edit:like what Tim said).

Fruitbat's library here is just an example of what can be done

[doushantuo]

and before I forget:kudo's for educating yourself.

I recognize that urge.

 

[Fruitbat]

If I may indulge in a little self-advertisement (with the capable assistance of doushantuo), I would like to recommend my Pdf Library here on The Fossil Forum as a good starting point for your search for things to read.  LINK TO TABLE OF CONTENTS  It contains links to thousands of freely-available on-line pdf documents on a wide variety of topics.  Some are highly technical and others are written for the interested layperson.  You should be able to find something that interests you.

 

-Joe

[Hat]

26 minutes ago, Fruitbat said:

If I may indulge in a little self-advertisement (with the capable assistance of doushantuo), I would like to recommend my Pdf Library here on The Fossil Forum as a good starting point for your search for things to read.  LINK TO TABLE OF CONTENTS  It contains links to thousands of freely-available on-line pdf documents on a wide variety of topics.  Some are highly technical and others are written for the interested layperson.  You should be able to find something that interests you.

 

-Joe

Thanks.

[Hat]

Jeez... yeah I had to put this Annals of the Former World down after reading just over half of it. I thought it would be a sort of odyssey through the history of Earth, but it's not. Too little science in that one for me. I just couldn't take any more heresay accounts of the childhood adventures of geologists from the 1800s, or stories about the cowboys and Indians. I'm taking it back to the library this morning, and exchanging it for a science book, or maybe a statistics book. Ha! That'll work my brain for sure!

[Kane]

Well @Hat, they can't all be winners. At least you knew when to give up rather than keep soldiering through it. If it is an odyssey you are seeking, with plenty of vivid images, I wouldn't turn my nose up at some of those Time Life books that were published back in the 60s and 70s. I have one that contains numerous contributors, one per chapter, by notable folks like Stephen Jay Gould et al. They kind of hit the sweet spot between not being too technical and not being too overly general either. 

[Hat]

I'm thinking of Texas Roadside Geology. It looks like a more science based book, and according to the reviews it goes in depth on several features of geology. 

 

The trouble with so many books it that they have awesome titles, but half way through you find out that they're not what they purport to be.

 

There's one called When Life Nearly Died: The Greatest Mass Extinction of all Time by Michael J. Benton that has a picture on the cover of some dreary, half-dead world. I (naive as I am) would assume this to be a scientific book about the end-Permian mass extinction, but reading the reviews on goodreads.com, the book mostly focuses on the authors adventures around the world while he was seeking information about the Permian extinction.

 

Think I'll avoid that one. Never judge a book by its cover I guess. 

 

Texas Roadside Geology looks and sounds boring, so it will probably turn out to be great.

[Kane]

I hear you on that. I was once leant a book titled, 'The Big Bang Never Happened.' It was a real corker filled with a lot of specious reasoning. It took a few hundred pages to say something that could have been much shorter. Since then, I've been very leery of flashy, provocative titles that are basically used to sell books. 

 

Does your local library stock Index Fossils of North America? That one is a classic. 

[Hat]

They don't. I just looked it up. I use the community college library that is closest to me now because they network with allthe other local community libraries and will have books mailed in upon request. They have more science books than the public libraries. There's a university here, but they charge a dang $50 per year fee for non-students to check out books. I may have to end up paying it. Aarrrgggh. 

[Kane]

Well, if you look at it another way, would you get your value out of the university library for that fifty clams? A lot cheaper than buying them! Imagine being a student and paying the tuition! When you break it down, it would be less than a buck a week, but think of the access to all those volumes that you can read to your heart's content

[Ridgehiker]

People need some understanding of geology  to get a handle on the fossils and the paleontology in their region.

 

Learning about your 'local rocks' is akin to learning a specific musical instrument.  Much easier to progress if you study music theory.  Think of a general textbook on geology as music theory.

 

Its easy to learn ten notes in a row...but not a thousand.  The thousand, however, can be much easier if you understand why a note is next.  The same with fossils....a bunch of 'facts' from 10 books can be just that...facts.  You need some geology context to hang them all on.  All the 'stuff' suddenly makes sense.

 

 

[Makasaurus]

I am on a similar mission, and would recommend Dinosaur Odyssey: Fossil Threads in the Web of Life by Scott Sampson. There is so much information with complementary illustrations and figures. Thank you for starting this discussion, I have a lot of the same questions!