Is palaeontology a waste of public money?

In these austerity-hardened times, why should palaeontology be funded over health research, team sports and performing arts?

Last week I was at the launch of the University of Oxford's Biological Anthropology Research Network and website at a panel discussion called Biological Anthropology: Possible Futures. The expert panel of academics not only speculated about the future of the discipline but reflected on the discipline's difficult past too. Biological anthropology or physical anthropology is the scientific discipline that studies the biological and behavioural aspects of human beings. It may also be the inspiration for the Girls Aloud 2005 hit, Biology.

There have been definite periods of waxing and waning of the subject at universities, biological anthropology departments and degrees have come and gone and come back again. It's an interesting subject but one that spans disciplines so sometimes struggles to build up a critical mass of pure biological anthropology academics to form a department. Consequently, it is also a subject that is oversubscribed, producing more students than can ever be employed in biological anthropology.