U of Iowa and the botanical museum

[Robin Leech]

Good evening one and all,

I have analyzed all the material sent out to us on TAXACOM 
regarding the U of Iowa administration's attempt to move all 
the botanical museum specimens from the U of Iowa to Iowa 
State University.

I have also looked at the legal documents prepared on behalf of
the defense that were created in order to stop the move.  If you 
read these, then I think you will all come to the same conclusion
I have: 
that the main thrust behind all this action is to convert
the U of Iowa's biology department into a molecular biology
department.  This is where the big money and big names are 
at present and for the near future.  If the move is successful,
it will convert the U of Iowa's biology department from a biology 
department of excellence to a molecular biology department of 
excellence.

But, molecular biology cannot survive for long without 
supportive holistic biology, but I do not think that this is
realized yet.  And the students certainly will lose without a
good background in biology.  I will bet that most, if not all, of
the molecular biologists at the U of Iowa either came through
a real biology department, and took courses emphasizing
physiology and/or biochemistry.  Thus, they themselves took
a lot of general biology courses, but, their students sure will not.

Robin Leech