Archived and disseminated information feeds back into the earlier stages of paleontological studies - observation, identification and interpretation.
The benefits of this feedback are obvious: the insights gained by earlier workers constitute the foundations on which later investigators build. These insights are transmitted by books and journals in libraries, by teachers in classrooms, and by mentors on the job. There is a role in this process for computers as well, in that expert systems can guide observations, identifications and interpretations. An expert system is a software tool embodying the knowledge of an expert in a certain field, which can guide a less experienced worker. Linda Tway and I have built several experimental expert systems - one assists a user to identify fossil taxa, another helps the user to arrive expeditiously at a reliable determination of the age (or mixed ages) of a fossil assemblage, and another assists in the description of pelagic sediments.
There are also negative aspects of the feedback that need to be borne in mind. If, for example, an older generation teaches that a specific set of features are the most significant ones to observe in a particular fossil group, the younger generation will be to some extent inhibited from bringing to bear a fresh, possibly more productive point of view. Similarly, an established system of classification (identification) can substantially impede the development of an alternative one based on different principles - the radiolarians provide a striking example of this inertial effect. And finally, accepted paradigms for interpretations of various facets of paleontological evidence can be displaced only by rarely-occurring flashes of insight.
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