Are you majoring in Earth Science or Before-Honey?

The inquiry in the title (to me, at least) has linguistically consistent constructs for two random college concentrations. At first glance, the latter does not seem to fit. I think it does, as I will explain below.

“I have heard of National Geographic, but what is that Geology thing you are studying?”

Let me begin by stating that what I observed throughout my academic and professional career as a campaign of renaming nearly everything Geology into Earth Science now seems more like an early attempt to “broaden” and “soften” the name of an entire field of knowledge that was doing perfectly fine for centuries. Nowadays, we can even say it was done to be more “diverse and inclusive”. 

In reality, it is but a simple translation from a neat Greek for “Earth Study [Knowledge]” to the familiar English term Earth (itself a Proto-Indo-European ... whatever that means, and maybe Norse/Old Germanic) and Science (Latin for “Knowledge”). Sounds much more inclusive now, especially linguistically (except to Greeks). Probably not explicitly designed as a “politically correct” move by the academy, this shift is definitely not warmly embraced by many geologists, especially those practicing this societally important discipline outside the ivory towers.

Naturally, you will ask: “How long before all Biology departments and majors are renamed into Life Sciences, with all other “-ologies” to follow”? No need for that, of course! … So … why did Geology departments and majors begin to undergo this “translation” transition in a massive campaign that accelerated sometime in the 1990s? As I recall, the main argument by some of my colleagues was (and largely still is): “Well, geology is almost never mentioned in secondary schools now, so most students would not know what it means” (way to give credit to Generation Z, as if assigning them the last letter of the alphabet was not enough). 

If these aspiring youngsters look up the definition of Earth Science study subjects and career scope today, they will quickly find that, in addition to geology (!), it harbors oceanography, meteorology, and astronomy, among others. With the latter ones, prospective students are certainly better off looking for good Atmospheric Science and Physics/Astronomy programs, respectively. At least I never heard an astronomer referring to him/her/…/themselves as an Earth Scientist (or a “Star-Arranger” if we are into translations now). By the way, the nation’s top-ranked university, Princeton, has the Department of Geosciences – a smart compromise!

Biology is an Earth Science too?! (source: EarthHow 100+ branches of Earth Science)

I am purposely skirting Environmental Science here (not ready for French yet). Certainly, every denizen of our environment clearly understands this term, all the while many environmental companies still prefer to hire “solid” geology, chemistry, or biology majors. And one is certainly welcome to pursue their passion in any career aimed at stewardship of the Earth (well … maybe not getting stuff out of it … at least not in the U.S. … it just feels wrong … do it somewhere else, preferably on the opposite side of the globe so it does not affect the global …. never mind). Perhaps one day it will be possible to calculate the number of carbon-consuming trees that were needlessly cut down to produce paper which would otherwise be saved if Earth and Environmental Science was written as Geology (I count 21 extra characters without spaces just in this sentence).

Why not? (source: IJGES)

As to renaming (i.e., translation),  I am more convinced now, that it had to do largely with a 19-20^th-century stereotype of a geologist as a “romantic field explorer climbing volcanoes with a hammer” somehow morphing into “that scientist who helps find fossil fuels”. Add petroleum or coal in front of geologist and these days you are practically a villain on an average college campus. I am surprised we have any graduating geologists (let alone those from non-traditional STEM groups, whatever that means) whose passion focuses on a quest for the energy resources and minerals that have dramatically advanced the human condition over millennia (and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future). 

Interestingly, most faculty who initiated or supported the renaming of geology majors, programs, and departments would actually identify themselves as geologists (not Earth scientists) when speaking to a layperson. I guess they just decided that the new generation of students will be better off with a more “inclusive” degree. I am almost sure that the HxSTEM founder does not refer to himself as an “Earth-Nature-Knowledge-Person”, since most people understand (or can quickly look up) that geophysics is in itself a broad field that uses the principles of physical sciences to understand everything from outer space to climate dynamics to our planet’s core. Wait … planet is also a Greek word … and so is galaxy (“Ga/Go+Lactic” literally means “the way/movement of the milk” so “Milky Way galaxy” is a bit of a repetition [Latin], i.e., a tautology [Greek] as a subset of redundancy [Latin]). And so on, if one actually knows what words mean (or meant), particularly those that were important to the survival of our ancestors …

and that brings us to Honey …

I used the equivalency in the title of this piece because following the Geology-to-Earth Science pattern, Pre-Med major properly translated into English (again, at least as I see it) should be Before-Honey. After all, the etymology of MEDicine (purported Latin or Greek roots notwithstanding) likely goes back to this sweet, never-spoiling, health-giving, miracle food and cure. The bees have done all the hard work of synthesizing a complex mix of local flowers, which surely made things a bit easier for ancient herbal healers tasked with hand-selecting proper plants themselves. At least in most Slavic languages “MED/МЕД” stands for honey, with the ancient MEAD drink being an archaic form that survived into modern English.

The meds … (Source: Behance / Croatia)

To wrap up, even today most of the goods around us were either grown or mined (the Stone Age has not ended!). In most cases, electric vehicles (enormous lithium-iron-phosphate battery aside) must still draw their charge from both of these modes – somewhere someone is burning very old plants at a nearby coal plant. So, let us spend less time on selectively renaming well-established science programs and instead focus on educating responsible stewards of our blue “wanderer”.