I am, however, saddened by the mind set of the survey mentality of “if you do it, thoughts will come.” Telescope allocation committees these days seem captivated by phrases like “complete sample,” and seldom seem to do the calculation of whether a 600-night broad survey will actually generate a greater scientific return than 200 3-night projects that have been targeted intelligently to address specific questions. It is undeniably a difficult calculation, since each approach must somehow factor in the unexpected, but one should at least ask the question.

Maybe, though, in the upcoming era we will be forced to think more like particle physicists as there would be little point in giving every astronomer their fifteen minutes of fame driving an ELT. This does, however, raise interesting issues about how one trains the next generation of astronomers in the broad skills of seeing a project all the way from beermat through instrument building to scientific returns (as, for example, Jim Gunn himself has proved so brilliant), as one surely must if they are going to run big projects in the future.

I don’t think for even one nanosecond anyone, in the SDSS collaboration or out, understates the importance of the various 2dF projects (and extensions)!

At perhaps the most basic level, the two projects were entirely independent, used quite different approaches, etc, etc, etc, … yet the results were mutually consistent. And where they weren’t, much good science has been done subsequently. Sure, astronomers are human, just like you and me, and some of them are vain, egotistical, selfish, … but just as many are magnanimous, generous in the extreme, self-effacing, …

And to second Chris’ comment, if you were around in the 1960s or earlier, try to imagine just how vastly different your access to the highest quality data was, compared to what you can get from SDSS today … for free!

Whatever papers you want to write, based on the TB (PB?) and more of SDSS, 2dF, 2MASS, FIRST, GALEX, WMAP, HST, … data (for free!), you are free to write, with or without collaborators.

I was reporting Jim’s comments, not my own opinion. To be fair, 2dF was given lots of attention during the conference including a very nice review by Ofer.

As for my opinion, Sloan has enabled many more beermat-paper projects by making the data freely available. I don’t know about what life inside the collaboration is like, but that’s been the effect for me on the outside at least.

As for your final discovery, personally I find that deeply depressing: if I wanted to work like a particle physicist, I would have become a particle physicist. To me, the attraction of astronomy has always been the possibility of seeing a project all the way from the back of a beermat to the scientific result, without a list of coauthors longer than the paper. I really don’t want to be sucked into a giant astronomical sausage factory.

I’ve followed your postings with fascination and wonderment.

I’d like to thank you for taking time out of your schedule, in order to enlighten and educate those of us not fortunate enough to be involved in this academic pursuit…

Nathanial BB