Paleontologic nomenclature

[hrlane@xxxxxxxxx]

Item Subject: Text_1
   For those of us who must work daily with scientists outside 
paleontology and biology, and with engineers, Linnean nomenclature is 
a problem.  The vissicitudes of our nomenclature, as allowed in the 
code, is debilitating to our science and befuddling to our colleagues. 
 I know that we have no other system to substitute, but if 
paleontology is to successfully enter the next century secure in the 
feeling that it will contribute its maximum and its fair share to the 
rest of the scientific world, it must stabilize its nomenclature.  The 
code as it stands now is only a set of recommendations, and that is 
probably all it can ever be.  Are we left forever to routinely explain 
to our fellow non-paleontological scientists and engineers why the 
names we were using last week are now all wrong?  Are we to be left 
with multiple consultant nomenclatoral schemes for the same fossils, 
leading to different zonal schemes rendering perfectly good data 
nearly useless?  Or, when can we finally bring an end to Joe Blow in 
Lower Slobovia publishing a new name for every fossil he encounters?  
The code allows all of this. This is not science, this is chaos.