The decade of galaxy formation: pitfalls in the path ahead
  At the turn of the decade we arguably move from the era of precision
cosmology to the era of galaxy formation. One approach to this problem will be
via the construction of comprehensive galaxy samples. In this review I take the
opportunity to highlight a number of challenges which must be overcome before
we can use such data to construct a robust empirical blueprint of galaxy
evolution. The issues briefly highlighted here are: the Hubble tuning fork
versus galaxy components, the hierarchy of structure, the accuracy of
structural decompositions, galaxy photometry, incompleteness, cosmic variance,
photometric versus spectroscopic redshifts, wavelength bias, dust attenuation,
and the disconnect with theory. These concerns essentially form one of the key
motivations of the GAMA survey which, as one of its goals, will establish a
complete comprehensive kpc-resolution 3D multi-wavelength (UV-Opt-IR-Radio)
database of 250k galaxy systems to z <0.5.
