Like it or not, we got a taste of the power wielded by overuse of the word “science” in this decade. Heretofore, some of us innocently thought that science was an abstraction, but we subsequently found out that it can be used as a club. While we can justifiably feel like victims of this new use and abuse of the term “science” from the recent (and ongoing) experience, it is an opportunity to do some self-examination by us “scientists” and “professionals”. So, if I don’t lose you on the controversial introduction to this situation in the short succeeding few paragraphs, I think you may feel rewarded by the list of THE FABULOUS FIFTY UNSCIENTIFIC THINGS GEOLOGIST DO, a list which hopefully serves as a stimulus for continuous improvement for geologists. Engineers and non-technical professionals in the mining business need not read further since there are few areas where you could improve on what you already do, no sarcasm intended.
What was thrust upon us in 2021 was one of those events that are engineered and cultivated only once or twice each century. The two years when a new virus appeared or escaped from the usual place, a biolab on Plum Island, Connecticut or Ft. (Anthrax) Dietrich, Maryland, or a wet market in Wuhan (funded by NIH and French), and when the annual Asian flu just…disappeared. Not a trace, and not a mention about that odd fact, either, from most sources of our “news”. And strangely enough, not a single person was responsible or held accountable for the (D.O.D. bioweapon) virus. But miraculously, there was a worldwide lockdown protocol ready to be enforced in various forms, and even more miraculously, a “vaccine” all set to kick that nasty (bioweapon) virus back to the test tube where it belonged. And all the instances of massive unrest in Chile, France, Lebanon, Hong Kong, U.S, Colombia, and many other places just ended on a dime. How convenient…
I remember that I was in Nelson, B.C. skiing in January 2020 when the news outlets began reporting about a strange outbreak in China. My antennae were up on this story because for several months I had been wondering how long the bastards who run things were going to put up with the very significant riots going on in the aforementioned countries. That’s a key thing that seems to have been memory-holed by skeptics—was the motivation for the timing of the roll-out to slap down all of the uppity plebs rising up worldwide, not rather by a preset date? It might have been a contingency plan.
I figured that this was not going to end well and discussed it with my wife. In fact, we cut our skiing in B.C. short in late February as it looked like the Canadians were going to go full-moron on the scare. As the farce developed, I was dismayed by some personal communications with geologists who I had once regarded as (skeptics) scientists. They really believed that the virus was deadly and that we should all mask up and do what the (scientists) experts said to do. And then came the (clot shot) “vaccine”. On a site visit to a mine in June 2021, I had to wear a mask indoors because I couldn’t attest to the management that I was “vaccinated”. Thus, any employee who was not fired at a North American mine for “not being stupid and not getting the shot” was treated as an infected animal who needed to be masked. Need I say that my inherent doubts about the profession of economic geology were enhanced significantly by the conduct of supposedly well-educated people who should know better?
Later, I caught the virus myself and can confirm that it was a bioweapon. I felt lousy for two weeks, lost my sense of taste and smell, and these senses will apparently never be quite the same. I can’t detect certain scents like roses very well. If I ever see the likes of our politicians and scientists responsible at the time in person, I fantasize challenging them to hand-to-hand combat (I get a baseball bat) since it seems our legal system will do nothing to them.
But, guys, our behaviors in the last few years weren’t really that anomalous. We geologists do stuff that makes little sense almost every day! We chase models, fads, make up new words, vote for politicians who are going to set things right, belong to committees that promulgate vague standards and find ways to end-run them. Here’s a list of dumb things that we do while calling ourselves all kinds of cool names: Resource Geologist, Economic Geologist, Chief Geologist, Exploration Geologist…and occasionally, Scientist. Let’s call it a Continuous Improvement list for those of us aspiring to be better SCIENTISTS!
THE FABULOUS FIFTY UNSCIENTIFIC THINGS GEOLOGIST DO
- Choose inappropriate element analysis method for the samples
- Pay little attention to QA/QC and less on analysis of results…until the end of the year ‘cause we have to check the box on that
- Assign the least experienced geologists to be full-time “logging geologist” to free the more experienced geologists to make interpretations based on 2nd-hand information from inexperienced “logging geologists”
- Create positions like “Beat Geologist” and “Core-Logging Geologist” to improve morale
- Accept the senior geology position reporting to a Technical Services Manager who is either an Engineer, a person who is unlikely to fully understand or embrace your role, or a Geologist, someone who will probably make you redundant, for better or worse
- Spend $1M on geostatistics for grade estimates and a buck on bulk density (paraphrasing Dr. H. Parker)
- Spend $2M on geostatistics and a buck-fify on geologic interpretation
- Take a position at a marginal mine supported by a promotional 3rd-party resource estimate (party is LONG gone) and expect to turn it around
- Grade control: Accept the $0.50 per ton allowed by the mine planner and smile—it’s in the spreadsheet, what could go wrong? Know that you are a cost to the operation if you ask for more and you could be “downsized”. Assume appropriate posture in planning meetings.
- Cite Leapfrog as the reason some chosen estimation procedure is justified and that the resource is valid
- Think inside the box: Plan drill holes even if the angle of intersection is inappropriate because suitable platforms are not available and you are reluctant to ask for suitable platforms
- Ignore sample recovery for RC drilling programs because it’s a nuisance and the only reason we are drilling RC is that we don’t want to spend a lot of money for the meters drilled or a lot of time logging
- And/or, assume that core samples are better than RC samples
- Won’t dream of drilling an exploration drill hole by conventional rotary methods but quite on board with sampling blast holes to determine the exact grade and tonnage of ore and waste in the mine for an entire open pit, just because…
- Use chip samples to determine exact tons and grade in an underground mine but they must be taken by a geologist working alone, moiling what he can from the rib or face using only a dull geology pick, and collecting a sample that is sized such that it won’t be too heavy to carry out of the mine
- Plan and build a US$1.2B open pit from surface drilling without driving a bulk sample decline to map the geology, assess geotechnical issues, and take appropriate process samples
- Plan and build an underground mine without sinking an exploration shaft or decline to map the geology, assess geotechnical issues, and take appropriate process samples
- Perform and report estimation validation results without comment even if they show major potential issues—pro forma validation (perfected by Soviets)
- Estimate resources based on 2m (5ft) composites and 5m (20 ft) blocks which are to be mined by large shovels after multi-thousand-ton blasts where ore and waste are blasted together, and expecting to match the actual grade-tonnage curve in mining and meet the target grade and tonnage for the various ore stockpiles (Suggestion: No one raise their hand)
- Classify resources based on the drill spacing that was arbitrarily decided as being adequate: for extra credit, include Measured resources for new deposits that are completely concealed and have no mining history or exploratory development
- Classify Measured resources based on a single sample type—what could possibly go wrong with that?
- Use ChatGpt to write the monthly operations reports
- Get “vaccinated” because the government or your employer said to do it even though there is no proof that the shot is safe or effective and you know someone who suddenly got sick this year and died unexpectedly from unknown causes (This one must slipped past the editor–just checking to see if you are still there)
- Explore for metals needed for “renewable energy”, “net-zero”, and the “green transition” because our professional organizations say, and assume, that this is a good thing without explaining why or what these terms actually mean
- Renew memberships to these same professional organizations and continue to listen to the glib executives of these groups
- Use the words “climate” and “change” together in a phrase making us “tautologists” instead of geologists
- Deftly pivot from looking for “battery metals” to looking for “critical minerals” so we can blow people up in other countries and enslave ourselves with our own technology instead of just wasting energy and polluting the domestic environment which just wasn’t enough in itself for our masters
- Blame China for mining “battery metals” and “critical minerals” and refining “rare earths” that we buy because we don’t really want to mine or process them ourselves
- Mine stuff that is highly toxic and for which there is yet no satisfactory and permanent disposal mechanism or suitable site for such disposal (Hint: starts with a “U” and “RE”)
- Fly in economy class to save the company money and you’re not the CEO
- Pay company CEOs annually almost the entire cost to explore and permit a new mine
- Buy mining stocks because we expect them to turn a recent hot hole (discovery) into a profitable mine that returns all capital and generates attractive dividends before we die
- Buy gold coins because we are sure the government will never again confiscate individual gold holdings
- Buy gold at a low premium without figuring out that when you sell it back it will be at a substantial discount to the current spot price
- Buy Bitcoin because it is not gold and we are sure we will always have free access to the internet and our “wallet”
- Buy Bitcoin because gold is too heavy to carry around and we want all of our transactions to be completely visible to the whole world on the “distributed ledger”
- We hear there is a shortage of silver so we buy it while not utilizing the 100 oz bars we already have effectively as doorstops, for which use they were fabricated in the first place
- Buying a membership at Costco hoping to get a deal on sample bags and wire ties and not just a bunch of low-quality cheap food that will slowly kill us
- Signing a lease for longer than 6 months; worse, buying a house in a mining town that doesn’t also have a ski resort
- Reviewing an open pit mine with more than 3 or 4 phases and not saying anything like: ”Well, it looks good on paper, but what about all of the dilution and ore loss which will occur with most of those pushbacks”?
- Spend millions on drilling and throw all the samples away in order to save storage cost, keeping only the final report, knowing that you will be able to work on the same property again in 25 years and will get paid to drill it again since all of the old data is lost (Wait, that actually makes sense in a selfish kind of way)
- Buy a mining stock based on a presentation by the CEO at a mining conference: extra credit: Forget to sell all mining stocks within a month after the PDAC
- Believe age dates are good to ±0.X Ma and should be reported in this manner because what could have happened to affect their accuracy in the short span of an Age?
- Understand “contingency factor” as a term meaning to ask for another truck or buggy in next year’s budget so that the geology team is able to visit the active headings instead of thumbing rides from the surveyors and engineers
- Expecting to actually get the requested pickup truck in next year’s budget
- Purchase and/or live in a home situated on a landslide or active fault (Guilty!)
- Answer a question about geology from a lay person with more than five words—worse, try to convince him/her why geology, where nothing happens for millions of years at a time, is exciting
- Inability to admit that you should have gotten an engineering degree, or at least an MBA, instead of a geology degree
- Keep radioactive and/or highly toxic mineral specimens in your house, unlabeled
- Think that it is important to close all historical mine openings to keep the public safe (from itself)
- Attempt to correlate and reconcile the Old Testament and geologic time scales
Oops, that’s 51 items. Well, if I could count, I wouldn’t have chosen geology. Geos—we liked (or licked) rocks and went to university to learn more, and learn the scientific method. What happened? Why do we mask ourselves in public places and why are we assigning a simple average of 2.56 as the ore deposit density? Why are we so accepting of dogma and authority, and models? The scientific method is not for the lab, it’s a way of looking at everything.
Let’s start over. First of all, we should develop multiple working hypotheses. If we, or someone, have an hypothesis and we are asked to act on it we need to question it and design tests. We need to be skeptical and try to disprove the hypothesis. If it stands the tests and other competing hypotheses fail, then we can be more comfortable with the finding, for now. If we are in the public sector, we also need to question and try to game the possible consequences of actions which might be taken to implement a particular solution. Why did that, and why does that continue to fail? From what I saw, geologists showed little interest in scientific inquiry and skepticism of the official narratives in the Covid1984 debacle. And this is consistent with my work in due diligence, exploration consulting and resource auditing where common sense and fundamental scientific methods are ignored, whether through ignorance or willful omission. We scrutinize one point and ignore another to the detriment of our work.
We send samples to a lab and don’t spend any time understanding the analysis method. We don’t understand the difference between SG and bulk density and we send out samples to the lab without any QA/QC. We run software that is only partially capable without major intervention and don’t question the results because the package is “cool”, the flavor of the day. We trust the results because the (government) vendor says it is good. We parrot phrases extolling the virtues of the net zero carbon future without expressing the slightest doubt, the least suggestion of a caveat to this wonderful future.
I wonder how far I would go to keep employed in this 3rd decade of the 21st century? That is, if I were 30 years old, told to get the jab and boosters, pressured to estimate and classify resources to meet the corporate objectives constrained only by vague regulatory guidance (i.e, 43-101) and squeezed by more proximal corporate pressure. I honestly don’t know. I’m past that and don’t really give a rat’s a__ at this point. I have empathy for the 30-somethings who are immersed in this paradigm and where an escape route may not be apparent or even attractive.
All I can say is that, in my opinion, our responsibility as economic geologists is to the investor and not the company executive whose interests are not always aligned. But let’s also just make sure we are doing a good job ourselves, paying attention to fundamentals and common sense. We can’t blame executives if we don’t set high standards for these things ourselves as scientists and professionals. All parties, public and corporate should expect us to hold a high standard and to apply the scientific principles that we associate with our credentials. If the motive of the investor is not aligned with our values, let’s try to avoid that sort of work. In sum, let’s not act like a bunch of sheep! Let’s employ reason, and above all, human values and morality in our work. In good times, we have some choices. We don’t always have to help mine uranium for bombs and reactors, or rare earths for disastrous windmills and cruise missiles—we can choose. Let the dumb guys work in those areas. The rest of us can stick with the mundanities—gold, silver, copper and the like. Salt. Limestone. Feel free to contact me if I omitted something from the Fabulous 50 List. It’s likely so. support@cameronresources.com