Column: Keep BAA
(02/07/03 5:00am)
Talk to an evolutionary biologist long enough and you'll eventually hear the words "minimum population size." It's a simple concept: If a group's numbers dip below a certain point, it has no hope of survival. I was 17 when I learned this lesson in Biological Anthropology and Anatomy 93, so I know it's one a teenager can easily comprehend. Why then can't Duke's administrators? There's little other explanation for their recent decision to cut the BAA faculty below its critical minimum, from 17 to six - either they don't understand that this will result in the department's extinction, or they are hoping for just such an outcome. It's hard to say which makes them look more foolish.