1: What specific field of science do you find most interesting?
My businesscard says "paleontologist", so I'm going with paleontology. I prefer mass extinctions, but have recently been working with the Pleistocene/Holocene transition.
2: Why is that field specifically interesting to you?
Dinosaurs. It's really as simple as that. However, as an added bonus I get to learn about alien planets and ecosystems that haven't existed for hundreds of millions of years. I've held Ediacran fossils in my hands, and mapped an extinction through a reef. Plus, my office makes the visuals in Skyrim look mediocre and sad.
3: Why is this field important?
We're going through a mass extinction right now. There's little question about it. The only questions are how this is going to pan out, and what things will look like once they're done. Mass turn-overs (a type of mass extinction) have happened in the past, so paleontology is ideally suited to answering these questions.
4: Where is this field used practically?
Not necessarily a valid question. The practical applications of theoretical knowledge may not become apparent for decades, or centuries. The study of electromagnetic waves is an iconic example.
5: What are the most important basics of this field of science?
Anatomy, physiology, ecology, mathematics, stratigraphy, geochemistry, geomorphology...Basically, the best way to think about paleontology is that it's what you do once you understand everything else that anyone else knows.
6: Give some interesting, likely unknown facts about the field.
Paleontologists have actually used explosives to destroy one another's dig sites. Hasn't happened in a long, long time, but it did in the past, and the result was the loss of incalculable knowledge.
Oh, and we drink. A lot. It's how we get access to some field sites--after someone shares a few beers with you (or a few bottles of tsuika--which I do NOT recommend) they're much more likely to agree to let you dig up the flowerbed.
7: Clear up some misconceptions people have about it.
To clear up a misconception, people would have to HAVE conceptions about us. Most people have only ever encountered paleontology in the form of Dr. Allen Grant on Jurassic Park. The thing is, we're as diverse as any other group. I've known paleontologists who don't like to get dirty, and paleontologists who don't own formal cloths. I've met some that fit in with backwoods Southern hicks, and some that fit in with high-class society (most of us can fit in with both--I've actually had to do this, in fact).
Does the media and politics often screw this branch of science over? Is it like climate change that has the die-hard opposers who laugh in the face of this "evidence" or is it relatively well accepted by most people? What is your stance on the general media presentation of modern science?
The media twists modern science into non-Euclidian shapes. They once reported one of my professor's findings as "Legless Crab Slithered along Jurassic Sea Bed". In point of fact, the specimen was a legless carapace--hardly a rare find, as decapods disarticulate relatively readily. And, well, we have Creationists, who frequently call us all liars and frauds and such. They never seem to realize that they're actually making accusations against real people.
