Dr. Jerome Dobson, might be the most outspoken advocate of geography in America. In the Winter 2011/2012 issue of ArcNews, he wrote a call to arms for geographers to examine the broader scientific canon. This op-ed was only the most recent salvo in his campaign to put geography back in the upper tiers of science. He believes that scientific understanding is operating at a deficit of knowledge because too few researchers understand how to properly use spatial tools. Even more, he thinks geographers need to be bolder stewards of their craft. Interdisciplinary research, he co ntends, is geography’s natural domain, and should be recognized as such.

Dobson has long been a controversial force. A GIS pioneer, he has rarely asked permission before taking up a problem that some other discipline might consider its territory. He has studied Neanderthals, continental drift, and the potential for our mobile devices to enslave us.

Dobson is a highly decorated researcher. He is a Jefferson Fellow at the National Academy of Sciences, has been a Senior Scientists at the U.S. Department of State, is the current President of the American Geographical Society, and still has time to teach classes at the University of Kansas.

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Stockton: You started your college career as a journalism major. What made you switch over to Geography?

Dobson: It’s a funny story really. I was a junior at the University of Georgia not happy with my choice of Journalism major and my room mate came in one afternoon and said he’d decided to switch to Geography. I yelled! I said, “You can major in Geography!?!?” Once I knew there was such a thing I knew it was for me and I got up the next morning and transferred, and never looked back. Absolutely, totally happy with that decision.

You were just in Russia. How does academic geography in America differ in other countries?

You know, Moscow University has fifteen geography departments. Well, it’s the same sub-disciplines that we would think of, except that where we got one person studying glaciology, for example, they’ve got half a dozen or more. Biogeography is one department; climatology and meteorology are one department; oceanography is one department. Remember that in this country oceanography was considered critical geography until about 1850, and after that it became a separate discipline.

There’s a push in academia to consolidate the earth sciences. What’s your take on this?



Right, and there was never any real logic to splitting it off in the first place. The thing is that we’re using a common view when we’re looking at glaciers, small or large. If your methods are spatial, your way of thinking is spatial, then why would it not be called geography?

In your essays and other writings, you’ve detailed a split in the sciences between process-based research and spatial research. When did that split occur, and why do you think spatial research is considered inferior?

Oh, I think it’s always been there. Look at the prime example of [Abraham] Ortelius using spatial logic to propose continental drift in 1586, and he wasn’t cited. The history of the theory of continental drift is that there are those who believed they understood the process. Even though that kept changing, they always put that over the spatial evidence and it wasn’t until [Alfred] Wegener that they even paid any attention to it, and still rejected it. It wasn’t until 1962 roughly when they saw in a closer view, still spatial, but they saw that closer view of ocean floor spreading and said “Oh yeah, Ok, that must be real.”

Now, by the way I have to admit to you one of the reasons I use the term ‘Process Logic’ and ‘Spatial Logic’ is because I’m trying to keep from casting it as one discipline against the other. I mean, I could say Geology or Geophysics and point the finger at them, and I’ve certainly had many direct run-ins with them, but I don’t want it to be cast as a disciplinary argument but I want to put it in terms of ways of thinking.

Maybe is the reason for the so-called “geographic inferiority complex.” There is this prevailing idea in science that the process is most important.



Some may think that we aren’t interested in process; We certainly are interested in process. We think that the knowledge of what happens spatially is at least a good a clue as the knowledge we have about the process. We do value understanding process. It’s just a matter of which direction you come from. But I worry sometimes that people say “Oh, well if you aren’t interested in process then you aren’t a scientist.”

In your article, you compared the potential of the geographic “Macroscope” to the revolutions brought about by both the telescope and the microscope. But, what is it about examining phenomena at our own relative scale that has eluded the mainstream scientific imagination?

Well, those other two are essentially visual. I think that we have a better ability to grasp how things operate and interact with each other in three dimensional space and we’re almost independent of scale. We can look at very fine processes and see how they work and also understand the big ones: Continental scale operations in the same way. I think part of the problem is that everything about the educational experience rewards the specialized view of things.

We talk about ‘lumpers’ and ‘splitters’; it rewards the splitters because they can more readily prove their point about small things and the large things.

Think about this, when we talk about large processes, they are automatically integrative. There are so many interactions of so many phenomena, so it is very difficult to test every aspect o f it and prove your point with that. Science, in my view, is more in need of integration. Scientific integration is the most rare and needed capability of all, and yet it’s not supported, it’s not rewarded.

In the examples you mentioned in your article: Cattle and deer sensing magnetism, and the existence of vast atmospheric water reserves, you described how geographers had known about these phenomena long before it was published. However, they were discovered by non-geographers using geographic principles. Why do you think it is that geographers are shy about venturing into other branches of research and publishing.

My purpose was to challenge the geographers as much as the others. It’s a twofold message because I do think that geographers tend to get so engrossed in the spatial half of it that they forget the process. They don’t understand or look into the process enough and it bothers me greatly. I have presented that as an oral presentation twice before I wrote it up as an article.

I presented at the National Center for Geographic Information Analysis down in Santa Barbara to the GIS gurus. I’d say it was kind of a disappointing reaction. One person actually said “So you think we ought to look at those old ideas, instead of looking at new things?” Well, continental drift has been around for a long time, but it’s not an old idea in the sense that it still has not been solved. There’s still active debates in other disciplines. If we had a breakthrough that was accepted by the rest of the sciences then we would be very revolutionary.

But if we just process the data and hand it over to them then we become the clerks of science. And in fact, the policy at Harvard University is exactly that. The president of Harvard said they were setting up the Geographic Analysis Center so that geographers could use GIS to support the other disciplines.

So I feel like it’s a two-edged sword, that geographers need to get more into the theory, you know the kind of theory that other disciplines are concerned with; and the other disciplines need to get stronger in the spatial view.

Also in that article, you said that geographers need to challenge some of the conventional theories and start looking at them spatially. You mentioned “low-hanging fruit.” Where should undergrads, grad students, and Ph. D’s be looking for that low hanging fruit?

If you look at my own publications, I’ve found major, unexpected, new theories in continental drift, in Neanderthal evolution, in lake sedification, and all this stuff I’ve mentioned.

My point is this: I’m finding those things everywhere I turn. Either I’m sort of kook and it’s wrong, or I’m some kind of brilliant guy if it’s right, or there’s just a lot of them out there and you’re gonna fine them if you look. The only difference between what I’ve done and what most people do is I didn’t stop when I reached the limits of what was already accepted. I just kept looking and found more. I think that’s what these students should be doing, they should pick whatever interests them and they should go digging. Use the spatial evidence. Don’t stop when you reach something that isn’t already accepted in the scientific literature. I think it’s inevitable that you will find new and different stuff.

What can geographers do to change the culture of science to accept spatial logic as valid and equal to process logic?

I worry that there aren’t enough geographers who are committed to it in that way. I think we need to be forcing students to think more aggressively about science theory but also about how to tackle problems with geography.

In challenging the culture of science, geographers might have to deal with a lot of rejection and humiliation. How can these geographers mitigate the potential harm they might do to their careers and reputations in the process?

Well, it helps to be right [laughter]. I think in my own case, I’ve said some things that certainly were not accepted by geologists, things that were not accepted by anthropologists, things that were not accepted by ecologists. But, I’ve always had my home base in geography, and I’ve always thrived within the discipline itself. And, I’ve always found good acceptance in funding communities and communities outside academia, so I don’t feel like it’s hurt me. In fact, it’s probably given me quite a bit of respect and appreciation. I think it’d be the same way with them. You just have to be careful about what you say. Don’t go out there without some solid proof and put your reputation on the line for every flimsy theory that comes along.

I worked for years, quietly, on each of those topics before I ever went public with them. When I published on Neanderthals, I actually sought review by ten of the world’s greatest experts before I submitted it to the journal. I knew exactly what the reactions were going to be, I avoided as many problems as I could, and I went ahead and published. It involved iodine deficiency so I had it reviewed by one of the leading medical doctors on iodine deficiency. There were trade issues involved, so I had a geographer studying trade take a look at it. The best thing to head off, or to see what’s going to happen ahead of time is to seek your own review that is at least as extensive as what the journal will seek.

Finally, in the closing parts of your essay that geographers need to demand that other disciplines live up to our standards. How do you think we go about demanding that?

Well, when we see someone write bad geography in an article even in a physics journal or in one of the majors, like Science for example. If we see bad geography in that then we ought to write our critiques. It’s a pain, but you gotta do it.

Bonus: Dobson’s CV