Professional Geologists, No Licensure Required in Colorado Options

[ASTROBLEME]

While 29 states and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico require professional geologists to have a Professional Geologist (P.G.) license, Colorado does not. The state certainly has an interest in protecting citizens, government entities and companies from unethical and/or incompetent practice.

Here's a link to what Colorado requires;

PG Definition

Our state should impose a licensure process in order to assure accountability and responsibility of P.G. practitioners.

ASTROBLEME

[Gene Kooper]

Being a simple country boy from the Nebraska Sandhills, I will make the following observation and suggestion to the both of you. Neither of you have any formal education in geology, but that appears to have not hindered either of you from proffering negative opinions about the science of geology and whether geologists should be licensed.

If either of you is really interested in the topic of whether geologists should be licensed or not, I suggest that you join a geology forum and pose the question. You will likely get a wide variety of answers from geologists there because of their varied educations and experiences, not to mention opinions from geologists that practice in states with and without a licensing requirement. Also, mining engineers are engineers and as such, are authorized to conduct tasks that include the "analysis and design work requiring intensive preparation in the use of mathematics, chemistry, physics, and engineering sciences." If Mr. Tonko believes that only licensed mining engineers can perform any of the tasks in his list, I suggest he start filing complaints for unlicensed practice with the engineering board!

I'll end my participation in this thread with a question. Why did the topic starter decide that this topic belongs in "Prospecting and Mining Laws, Regulations etc.
Discussions for Laws, Code of Federal Regulations(CFR) or subparts, as well as discussions pertaining to the Forest Service maual (FSM) and the Forest Service Handbook (FSH) concerning prospecting/mining."?

[Clay Diggins]

Being a simple country boy from the Nebraska Sandhills, I will make the following observation and suggestion to the both of you. Neither of you have any formal education in geology, but that appears to have not hindered either of you from proffering negative opinions about the science of geology and whether geologists should be licensed.

I didn't mean to step on your cord Gene. The folks down at New Mexico School of Mines in Soccorro would probably disagree with your assumption about who is a geologist but I'm not sure the Sandhill School of Geology would recognize the credentials of such a small unknown school as Soccorro. Besides I'm just a visiting geologist there these days.

This being an open forum and the discussion being about Professional Geologists and Registration and me having direct experience in Geology and in the law (Stanford) and Horticulture (Cal State Fresno) I felt some comments on those subjects, their relationships and my direct extended experience with them might present a slightly different perspective to the subject.

I see you hooked on the geologist thing and it appears you took it personally. It certainly wasn't intended to be personal so please forgive me if my perspective offended you. That was never my intent. I have since become aware that you have been discussing geologists on another thread. I was unaware of that discussion and I was not attempting to influence that discussion with my previous post in this thread.

I know that geologists like to rely on their extensive knowledge and use of the hard sciences in their profession and some even seem to conflate that practice and use as being geology science. It's a flexible language.

I don't know when you went to school but back in my days Tectonic Plate theory was very controversial. I'm sure you can think of other Hypotheses that were struggling on the edge of Theory back then. Most have since passed from favor. Without ever being capable of demonstrating a proof Tectonic Plate theory is now taught as established "science" and the foundation of Geology. I guess democracy passes for scientific method these days. It worked for psychiatry so why not geology?

Please take note that I am not challenging Tectonic Plate Theory itself. I am only pointing out the fallacy of founding a science on a recent unprovable theory when the "science" itself has historically relied for it's foundation on several other theories that are no longer in favor. Heck even the name Geology is being discarded in favor of "Earth Sciences" to more accurately reflect the range of hard sciences that form this field of study.

As far as understanding the thoughts of Geologists I'm guessing you missed the part of my post where I admitted publicly that "I work with a lot of geologists"? Strangely not one of them has taken personal offense at my thoughts on the science of Geology. Maybe working closely and depending on my judgement and knowledge to help them puts them more at ease and open minded when that subject comes up.

I'm not sure how involved in the industry you are these days Gene but the "science" of Geology has lost interest with young people seeking an education in a professional field. Fewer schools are offering solid Geology degrees each year. This has led to an ongoing struggle with academics taking different points of view on just how to revive interest in "rocks". Here is just one of the many ongoing discussions about this problem. Notice that the professional participants in this and most other discussions have come to the common point of view that Geology is practiced through the use of "hard science" disciplines. The assumption logically and experientially is that Geology is not a "hard science" in and of itself. I'm guessing the alternative is soft science? I prefer the term "field of study" but that may be too many words to be convenient when text messaging. It's a flexible language.

Moving on to the Elephant in the "Geology is a Science" room will you even attempt to address the language deficit? Sciences have a language. Each Science builds it's own terminology that eventually becomes the agreed and established language of that science. Chemistry has a language, Physics has a language, Math has a language. Even psychiatry and humanities have languages that deal with the objects and concepts in their realm.

Now, as a Geologist, describe the geology of a typical graywacke/serpentine interface in a notational language that every geologist can recognize and concur in the details of that description. You can't and neither can any other geologist. There is no unified geologic classification language and there probably never will be. Not only is the foundation of geology built on the acceptance of unverifiable theories but the language of geology is fragmented and as individual as it's practitioners. Please don't assume that fact as amounting to a "negative opinion" of Geology on my part. Sometimes facts may seem harsh but I'm just stating a fact, not my opinion. My opinion is that the field of study sometimes referred to as geology is vast and constantly appealing to me.

I work with real life geologists and one of the first realities of each project is coming to an understanding of that particular geologist's notation. Typically associated groups of geologists have very similar notation but working with another associated group requires a new language session - sometimes even when the subject location is the same. A lot of this can often be worked out through experience and assumption but in the end the language of geology is not something you can put in a book and assume that, without further explanation, 50 years from now working geologists can know what you meant.

I understand why there isn't a unified Geology classification but it just circles back to the very nature of geologists and their work. If that's offensive to you please try to understand that to many geologists it's just an expression of a vast field of study. They take pleasure in the fact that the deposits or structures they are studying are unique in more ways than they are similar to others they could study. They prefer to define their discoveries in a manner that is self cohesive and often self referencing. To them there is more precision and depth in participating in a field of study rather than a defined science. Geologists get to be chemists, physicists and practice hard science while working in a field of study generally referred to as Geology. To my way of thinking that's a lot more interesting and invigorating that being stuck with working in an undefined "science" without a common language.

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So that is the nature of discourse on or off the internet. You offer a point of view backed by your reasoning (and hopefully some facts) to support your point of view. I counter with my point of view backed by my reasoning (and hopefully some facts) to support my point of view. If we both commit to the discourse with honor we will eventually find we agree on some common points and perhaps disagree on some other points. We end our discourse, as gentlemen do, and consider the discourse as a whole does enrich us individually. Otherwise why engage in discourse at all?

Taking another's written point of view as being so offensive as to be worthy only of scorn and derision of the individual is not discourse. Generally when reacted to, as you just did, it's really just a veiled ad hominem "argument". Leaving the discourse without relevant reply is generally considered to be a capitulation - not a statement of self worth. Trying to trump the views of others with claims of superiority can really only devolve into "mines' bigger than yours" slap fights. Not mature, instructive or productive.

You obviously feel passionate about this subject. I could only guess why that is since you found the experience so upsetting you had to leave the discussion. I'll be a gentleman and not speculate further on your reasoning. In the meantime please consider that the internet is full of ***holes. If you don't want to be bothered by ***holes in life you might want to consider not engaging them with promises of reasonable discourse.