For These Are Jolly Good Fellows

The American Association for the Advancement of Science or AAAS had their big annual meeting the other week in Chicago and took the occasion to honor a bunch of new Fellows. Out of 486 people, a mere dozen or so are Earth scientists. The ten listed under Geology and Geography include:

• Patrick Bartlein, paleoclimatologist
• Oliver Chadwick, soil scientist
• Patricia Gober, water management scholar
• Ed Landing, paleontologist
• Jian Lin, oceanographer
• Kam-biu Liu, paleoecologist
• Shih-Lung Shaw, GIS researcher
• David Siegel, marine scientist
• Thomas Veblen, biogeographer
• Dawn Wright, oceanographer

I also spotted James Lovelock among the physicists and Alan Robock among the atmospheric scientists, but there must be many other geo-specialists hidden under other specialties. Excellent people all, and congratulations to each, but sometimes I wonder if AAAS is still holding a grudge against hard-rock scientists. It was back in 1888 that the Geological Society of America was founded by geologists who felt that AAAS wasn't serving their needs—and here the AAAS began existence in 1840 as the Association of American Geologists.

That's silly, of course, because the GSA is an affiliate of the AAAS today (along with more than 20 other geosocieties). But why are Earth scientists so rare among the Fellows? My guess is that the Geology and Geography section needs to widen its vision.