Obsolete Skills

[keikiwai]

there is a thin line between obsolete and lost

most people would say that being a nematode expert is an obsolete skill...... until they need to identify a strange parasite or die

this example isn't completely random; in biology the art of using phenotypes (as opposed to genotypes) to id species is dieing...... while there are many more people who can run dna tests etc. there are fewer and fewer people who can look at a nematode.... or sponge.......... or nudibranch, and identify it using it's phenotype

most of this loss is meaningless.... no one needs those skills usually........ but every now and then you run into a problem where you suddenly need a spot on, eyeball species id, and you can only turn to 70+ year old people, and what will happen when they're gone?