#how to be a paleontologist
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hey so I wanted to become a paleontologist, and I was wondering how? Like the system that exists to educate a paleontologist seems to be such guesswork that it’s maddening. I just want to focus on vertebrate paleontology and it feels like the education system really doesn’t want that.
it doesn't profit capitalism (and in many ways actively destabilizes it as many things we learn from paleontology disprove founding theories of capitalism), so, yeah, the education system doesn't want that
you kind of have to claw for it
find someone to do research with, either at your institution or elsewhere
try to volunteer for relevant things (conferences, museums, etc)
think about what research questions you have and narrow down grad school choices to people who study the same questions. be as specific as you can
learn everything you can about everything you can because paleontology is holistic af
#paleontology#ask a paleontologist#ask a scientist#actual paleontologist#advice#how to be a paleontologist
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SO tired of seeing the whole "but arks not accurateeeeeee!!!" bullshit. I'm going to stab you shut up. Shut the fuck up.
Bestie. Ark was never meant to be educational, it was never meant to tell facts abt dinosaurs, that was never the fucking point. The ark devs literally said themselves they were not going for accuracy, not every single piece of dinosaur media needs to be 100% accurate all the time.
People aren't going to play ark to learn about dinosaurs. They are going to play ark bc they want to play a sci-fi fantasy game with dinosaurs. There are dragons, tentacle monsters, unicorns, griffins, xenomorphs and SEVERAL other forms of fantasy creatures.
Ark was never designed to be informative, educational, or accurate. The devs have stated that time and time again. If you want to actually learn about dinosaurs, go watch a documentary that is made to be informative and accurate.
So tired of this stigma where every single dinosaur ever in any media has to be accurate or it's bad and should be hated.
#ark se#ark survival evolved#btw I live with a paleontologist she thinks its stupid how much ppl get worked up over this too lol#spook txt#ark stuff#sometimes ppl want big dinosaur cuz its rad as fuck
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the real question is, where will all the asian artists migrate to
#*shakes my hand @ Elon* now where am I going to find my carefully curated yuri and yaoi#you need to use 38595 exclusion tags to avoid being scarred for life on pixiv#and tumblr is all fine and dandy for the mutuals and writing your showet thoughts but I don't think it's super accessible for everyone#but I liked seeing artists sharing their creative process! And paleontologists talking about their research!#How am I supposed to see the Mexican translator and localizator of a manga talk about his method???#I'm happy that Musk is rolling inside a garbage can on fire but also he's destroying one of the ways we could interact with people#from all over the world. what are the alternativea
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Trying to watch documentaries about your field of study is so frustrating. Yes I know we have a common ancestor with chimpanzees; why did you take ten minutes to explain that?! Everyone knows that! Right? Right!? Of course chimps are built for climbing but tell me why! Are you gonna talk about their shoulder joints or aren’t you? Yes, yes, the hand-feet, we’ve all seen them. Shoulder joints are way more interesting. Shut up about the hand-feet.
#i'm so mad#i tried to watch three different paleoanthro documentaries#the first one was made by an amateur. the second was as much about ice age megafauna as anything. and the third was this.#i'm learning that if their main narrator/informant is not a paleoanthropologist that's a red flag#paleontologist? great now we're gonna spend an hour talking about megafauna. anatomist? honestly i have no idea why they're here#i don't need to hear someone go on about the evolution of bipedalism for ten minutes without even mentioning the anatomical changes#that made it possible. tell me about the foramen magnum! tell me about the pelvis! tell me about knees!#and shoulders! and finger bones! tell me how we developed non-grasping feet!#if you're not going to talk about those then what are we even doing here#hylian rambles#anthropology#paleoanthropology#hominins
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i got down this strikingly accurate sketch of a theriotype i’ve been trying to nail down since i was a little kid but i have NO fucking clue how to color it because we perceived color so differently. suffering from success
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ive been playing a lot of pokemon-like games lately to search for something new to fill the void of the desire to collect creatures... so many games show so much promise but there's always something holding them back. it's usually just like one thing and i cant get too mad bc a lot of them are either extremely inexpensive or outright free. but it sucks to be playing a game thats otherwise solid only for it to suck bc like, the writing is abysmal or the gameplay loop is miserable. the most egregious thing ive encountered in a lot of these games is the lack of a robust bestiary. like thats the main reason i played pokemon and stuck with it, when prof rowan asked me to research for him i took that seriously 😭 i want to know abt the animals please for the love of god give me a description, a habitat range some fun facts. please
#strato.txt#i got spoiled to gen IV dex w/ footprints and the height and weight scale and the cry remixer and form differences..#when they took away footprints i sobbed cried and screamed. i was like WHERE ARE THEIR LITTLE PAWS....#maybe its cause i associated footprints w/ that guy who gives you a ribbon if your friendship is maxed out#cause he reads how much ur pokemon love you by the way they leave footprints in the sand... sigh#anyways. the scale for showing u how much pokemon weighed was cool too. how it launched dawn/lucas if the pokemon was heavy enough#i just really. REALLY want to feel like a field researcher that was always so important to me as a kid. going out and learning and growing#the villainous team is just a roadblock. and obstacle in my path to learn and see the world#i feel like gamefreak has shifted from learning as a narrative to coming of age and saving the world as a narrative. im sick of it tbh#is that what kids want these days. when i was a kid i wanted to be an astronaut and a paleontologist#so many games are getting the 'whoa cool beast' thing down. theyre the tyrannosaurus lovers. they like the cool animal and its evolution#but theyre neglecting like... the nature part? the part where the animal clicks in with the world. where its part of the ecosystem#they know that trex is cool and huge but not that it lived in a subtropical climate dominated by angiosperms.#the pokemon co and gamefreak have gone to great lengths to make pokemon feel REAL#they exist in their environments and shape them and interact with each other. many prey on each other#pokemon inhabit certain regions of the world bc thats their /ecosystem/. theyre not just randomly placed...#oh my god. i have more to say but im stopping here. im stopping
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If I talked about ALL my Zora headcanons mfs would be beating me with a stick. I have Far Too many.
#zora salazar#I’m normal about her (lying)#she’s such a mystery we know barely ANYTHING about her#what was she doing in the time. between her parents died and she became a bounty hunter???#was she just like. in the WOODS the entire time???#what was she like as a child??#how did she learn how to shoot guns??? like. girl how. h o w.#AND AND#we know NOTHING about her parents other than they were paleontologists#LIKE. IT’S ALL JUST FREE GAME#U CAN DO S O M U C H#epithet erased
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Thinkin about how if you're actually a scientific expert of some kind then you generally do not refer to other experts as "scientists," but rather by their specific field.
#this is how you can differentiate between real experts and fucking YouTubers#academia#''scientists believe [insert bullshit about the pyramids (its always the pyramids)]'' hey no they dont#bc if they did a physicist or a paleontologist or a meteorologist or literally ANY specific field instead of just ''scientists''#would be listed
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#uuuugh i desperately want to take a geology course#and aquire paleontology friends#and be a paleontologist. i mean i wanna be an astrobiologist with Microbiology. ecology. evolutionary biology. geology. and paleontology#influences. also biochemistry. and that's all vaid bc astrobiology is intersectional. i can get there however i want#and what i want is to look at the evolution of biochemistry in cyanobacteria but finding someone who does something that specific is hard#but like learning abt paleontology has broken my brain a bit. like maybe its just bc im in the desert and u can see the exposed ground but#like i look at the landscape and see the volcanic rock and uplifted areas snd everything and its just like#holy fuck we are walking around on 4billion years worth of history and i wanna kno how all those processes work#in terms of making the landscape how it is#and i got to see some fucking wild trace fossils the other day and i was so fucking excited to see them#and when i go home to visit i think we're gonna see a pretty good natural history museum#bc my parents were like: what do u wanna do while ur home? and i was like well u see i am v into paleontology atm#and im v excited to go with them bc idk they kno what kinda freak i am and that always makes things easier#also they would prob read the info on the exibits if i asked bc i cant fucking read lol#and my mum is v into rock collecting rn so that is an excuse for me to learn abt geology stuff#hhhhh there is just so much cool stuff to learn#and everyday i have to sit there and do my lab work on a topic that i have greatly diverged away from#like my boss was like: im so excited. when we publish all this data u will be the name ppl think of when they think of carbon cycling in X#system! which is true. its a narrow field and ive generated lots of data#and what do i feel abt all that data? absolutely fuck all. its like ive maliciously collected a bunch of little gems and then im gonna#uncarimonially dump them on the floor for a tiny collection of ppl and then walk the fuck out the door#idk its probably just me being passive aggressive bc collecting the data has/is casuing me such physical and mental strain#but god if i could take a paleontology class rn id be so fucking annoying abt it. to b fair id also be the same abt a Microbiology class#sigh... maybe within the next year#unrelated#lmao im extremely annoying abt paleontology now and i havent even taken a class#at every chance im just like: well u kno... *insert fact here*#and i feel so obnoxious but i can't stop so i guess its just a hazard of being around me haha
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life IS about the little joys, like flooring people with your choice of ambitions
#pant rambles#look. at six i was flooring people with wanting to be a paleontologist (and knowing how to spell it)#and at almost-twenty i'm flooring people every time they ask my major and get the answer of anthropology#from one paleo to another if i do say so myself
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As a former human child I’ve always wanted to know: how exactly does one become a paleontologist?
okay there are lots of ways. this is my way
have parents that, while poor, value education and learning
have significantly older siblings that do not care about appropriateness for children in terms of television content
bc of b, see jurassic park as an infant
bc of that, and land before time, fall in love with dinosaurs
be neurodivergent
become OBSESSED with dinosaurs
bc of a, have parents encourage this and rent me all the documentaries
learn everything about dinosaurs
when asked "why do you like them" at age 5, answer "because their evolution is cool"
survive elementary school
survive middle school
do a lot of science stuff in school
do science competitions in high school
remain obsessed with dinosaurs/birds and other reptiles and prehistoric life
survive high school
go to college
major in biology
do research in evolution and the cambrian explosion
graduate
go to graduate school to become an evolutionary developmental biologist because your parents wanted you to do genetics bc they thought it had a better chance of me getting a job
be miserable during that program
only derive joy from docenting at the field museum and going to dino science conferences
cut out with a masters' when you realize you can't take it anymore
ponder being a rabbi for a while bc maybe you're not cut out for science
go to a dino conference online and actually network with a paleontologist who wants students
interview with him and find he has a lot of research interests in common with you
apply to the school, get accepted
move across the fucking country (chicago -> new mexico)
work hard because this is your second chance and you have *meds* now
help describe a bird in the first year
have a really holistic and ambitious thesis project idea
paleontologist now, I guess
#paleontologist#how to be a paleontologist#science#paleontologist ama#i was privileged in the parents I had in that they encouraged my curiosity. not everyone gets that.
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wizard, on the phone to a paleontologist necromancer NPC we know: you're a doctor, right?
paleontologist: not that kind of-
wizard: oh, I know, I was just hoping you might know other doctors who ARE that kind of doctors
paleontologist: I do, actually! the best doctor I know is [the cleric we're on a mission to help in the first place]
wizard: ...ah. okay. I do have one other question though
paleontologist: go ahead!
wizard: do you know how to make a hazmat suit out of leaves?
DM: the line is silent so long that you're afraid the call has disconnected.
#two earths#tbf the paleontologist then told the wizard how to craft a gas mask from scrap#which was truly impressive
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Scrabbling at the staff only doors of natural science museums. You guys should do artists residencies.
#you know how hard that would fuck???????#so hard#LISTEN! i am trying my hardest to graduate with a minor in curatorial studies. amnh . call me in 20 years we can make it happen#if you must know I have recently become obsessed w the odd animal specimens YouTube channel#listen. i wanted to be a paleontologist & then later zoologist as a kid & spent my teen years trying to avoid my father by bouncing between#the Met & AMNH. both are special to me I contributed heavily to the amount of charcoal dust in the carpet in the hall of oceans#even now I am fascinated by scientific & medical illustration and paleoart#& like amnh does have paleoart on display in one of their galleries………….
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Ah! I finally got what I wanted to say to my colleague earlier! We were reading about cool dinosaur things cus there's a dinosaur show at work, and S said that she thinks it's a waste of money to give money to find out what noises dinosaurs made. Grrr! I just told her we're not gonna agree on that so let's not fight, and then resisted her additional attempts to keep on about it. But she was like, give the money to cure cancer instead. I don't know huge amounts about academic funding but I know enough to tell you, academic funding for things like paleoacustics (sp?) isn't stealing money from cancer cure research. That's not... How that works. At all.
#I did say to her that paleontologists probably couldn't cure cancer no matter how much money you gave them but she didn't think my joke#Was as hilarious as I did.#She said 'you keep talking about paleontologists. I'm talking about cancer'. But... We was talking about dinos. Confusing.#Anyway. Its just anti-intellectualism.#I'm not saying there's no questionable things in what gets funded there sure is#But the idea that it's only got any value or worth if it's something immediately applicable to some concrete problem is just plain wrong
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So. After that post about warrior cats’ names being something that literally exists now (ie. Whiteclaw) I had to look it up on the Wiki that this was really a cat that existed in the book and not something I barely remembered and was like ‘Yeah, that’s totally a cat.’
It’s a cat. A riverclan one from the first series. Deadass. There’s a cat named White Claw.
Long story short, I ended up in a rabbithole and now I Really want to read that whole special edition about Yellowfang.
#taks speaks#i read the first series enough times to know and i Knew#i havent read any of the books since like middle school#bc i ran out of them#and now THERE ARE SO MANY#what has it been? ten years maybe? (holy fuck btw how was it that long ago) AND NOW SO MANY WARRIOR CATS#i do not know how i got to yellowfang from whiteclaw and yeah. i need her story.#she was great even if she was a grumpy old medicine cat from the books i read#i may have accidentally given myself spoilers about brokenstar tho but nbd i still want in#thanks guys for tossing my old hyperfixation into my enclosure. now i am in need of more.#they say you get back into the cringy stuff you were into as a kid in your twenties they do. they were right.#hell i might pick back up fossil fighters even#the whole game that managed to give me enough material to research prehistoric animals#and get into an argument with a youth group pastor about a pakicetus#i loved the pakicetus in that game. it was like a dino vaporeon. then i saw actual paleontologists drawings of it#it aint pretty but it sure is the devils dolphin lmao
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can you guys tell i'm extremely normal about dinosaurs ?
#i love theeeeeeeeeeem#wanted to be a paleontologist as a child#i really like fossils specifically#especially plant specimen fossils#and seeing verrrry old plants that we still have around#like uuuhm#ophrys apifera is the plant i'm thinking of right now#their bees no longer exist but we know what they look like because of the ophrys apifera's mimicry#it makes me emotional. a flower is mimicking a bee that went extinct. and now it self pollinates.#how many creatures and plants did we lose because creatures or plants that they evolved alongside did not make it?#don't mind me i'm emotional over a flower
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