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Norm MacLeod and I are both right. We express it differently and to a different extent. A large part of the debate seems to be carried by micropaleontologists because they deal with a large number of names daily. Dinosaur people get ticked off if one of their good old names get subsumed by another with priority, and then they want to throw out the code, but these are very rare. >Paul Jeffery's comment illustrates my point nicely. It is incredibly >frustrating for those who are interested in the stratigraphic answer to a >particular question (or the car part for a particular make and model) to >have to wade through nomenclatural minutiae. It is incredibly frustrating to wade through the terminology of any science or technology. The carbonate petrologists, for example, are damn fortunate to have only a limited number of carbonate types, or the whole world would drown in words. Terminology is based on usefulness. The Eskimos, we are all told, have dozens of words for snow. They see the differences, and for most of us, it doesn't make a bit of difference as long as we can slide down it. So we have to sort through our paleo-minutiae--that's because God gave us so many different things to work with, and, damn him/her, made them commonly intergrade. But these ARE tools that make our stratigraphy even better. So, I endorse the poor fellow in Baluchistianian, who describes 10 new species from his K/T section. Makes Norm think, and that's good. It can even be progress. >With all respect I really >feel that statements like the one below... > >>Likewise non-palaeontologists cannot grizzle if they present us >>with little mounds of rock-chips from a borehole in the middle of some god- >>forsaken tract and ask us to read the entrails for them. > >...badly miss the point. The simple fact is that they do "grizzle." I >think they have every right to grizzle. We all grizzle about lots of stuff. In the consumer world, when we grizzle, things are supposed to improve or they get tossed out. >And I believe it is evident that >they are currently expressing their grizzly state of mind by outsourceing >their paleontology to laid off consultants and students at bargain basement >prices. It is less the grizzling and more the bargain basement prices that are causing all this. While I won't support this mindless downsizing that the world's corporations are doing, I understand that if you want to save money now, get rid of high-cost items (like salaries and benefits) that you see no use for or that you don't care if it is done outside the company. The long-term costs are never figured in this kind of thing, and it doesn't make any difference as long as year-end ledgers are what counts. I think the companies do not think paleontology is worth supporting in a proprietary environment anymore. They don't care about the names we use. If we made them money again, they'd hire us back at good pay. They did the same thing in this university, only they didn't take unproductive departments or people, they took the oldest, most experianced people--the very ones who know how to run the place--and gave them early retirement packages. If we look beyond paleo, I think we see the same thing--professors, Amtrak drivers, middle-level executives in Silicon Valley, military bases in the US, and so on, ad infinitum, unfortunately, are being downsized or eliminated. People-power investment in the future seems to be unimportant now. And I know more than one geochemist that was downsized right out of oil companies when all this began. It is much more than paleo. Those are mean companies out there now, and they are socking it to their oldest and best employees and their oldest and best customers. >Meanwhile university and government research grant administrators >are seriously beginning to wonder whether non-environmental earth sciences >are worth the trouble it takes to maintain them in their ivory tower >havens. Our science isn't hurting us. Our image is and to a large extent >that image is conveyed by how well we communicate with others. Our image sucks, no doubt about it. In this university, when enrollments are up, departments are GOOD! Like in the late 70's when Time Magazine ran an article about an independent oil geologist who made a couple of million dollars/year. All of our geology classes became impacted and we excluded students from them. The administrators dumped wheel-barrows full of money on us so we could take more students. Then our single-source employer crashed, Time told everyone about it, and all the students disappeared. We were left with a bunch of empty wheel-barrows cluttering the hallways. We were downsized, ourselves. Too bad, but maybe we overextended ourselves to begin with. We've got hundreds (or thousands?) of earth scientists in the US alone on soft-money (and getting softer, if the Newt gets his way). Sort of scientific welfare, if you will. I thought long ago that this was not good--too many geol/paleo types getting going on narrowly defined careers that were really fun (that's why we did it) but not supportable over a career on soft money alone. I don't have an answer today (but give me time), but Norm is right to an extent--we must change our image, but the new image must be based on good, useful science (or education in the case of university people) that someone wants to pay for. Nomenclature is trivial in this larger view. > >Jere's earlier point about keeping complaints about the code and Linnean >nomenclature separate is correct, but, then again, the code is based on >Linnean nomenclature to such an extent that much of the former makes little >sense unless the latter is accepted. This is not true. The Preamble to the ICZN says nothing about Linnean nomenclature. It states "The object of the Code is to promote stability and universality in the scientific names of animals and to ensure that the name of each taxon is unique and distinct." Sounds to me like that would solve Norm's problems with nomenclature. Problem is, God has too many little creatures that confuse us and too many of us that confuse each other. The rest of the Preamble has some good stuff too, like "priority is the basic principle". If not this, then what? "Norm's concept 23K/T678 accessible over http://www.hnm.ac.uk/form.catalog looks pretty much like Jere's Globigerina kelleri which appears on the Internet to be identical to Bill's 5c3w2a which is the root of the K/T clade shown on Betty's relational database at locus . . . . " Priority is important, definition is important, uniqueness is important, stability is important, and universality is important in communication. The Code provides a good set of rules, carefully thought out over the years, to do this, whether or not Linnean nomenclature is used. So you don't like LinNom. Invent something else. Then get a copy of the ICZN, cross out all references to Family-, genus-, and species-level taxa, substitute your new phraseology or numerology, and we can go from there. No need to write new rules, they already exist. >Regardless, paleontology's problems >are not entirely the fault of nomenclature. But our nomenclature >oftentimes does seem to hinder rather than promote our ability to >communicate. Certainly this is the case with the non-paleo. professionals >in the oil AND environmental industries with whom we must communicate >because they "buy" our product. Look at the way Coke and Pepsi are sold. They don't tell us what's in it, only how good it is or better it is. Positive PR would help us a lot more than quibbling about nomenclature, since we will be stuck with distinguishing those crummy fossils forever. Look also at the plethora of popular books (mostly about dinosaurs) and semi-technical books (mostly by Steve Gould) that use nomenclature but are still regarded as models of communicating the excitement and importance of paleontology. >As was pointed out in several previous >PaleoNet postings, however, nomenclature is also the source of confusion >and needless controversy within our own specialty areas. True, other >sciences have these problems as well. Nevertheless there isn't much >argument among physicists about what an electron is, or among chemists >about the definition of NaCl, or even among biologists about the >characteristics of a coatimundi. Paleontology differs from these >disciplines (including most of biology) in that our fundamental units (= >species) are irreducibly historical entities that are not the same through >time. The basic problem, as I see it, is that we seem conceptually locked >into a classification/nomenclatural system that was originally developed >without this fundamental attribute in mind. It is a poor workman that >blames his tools. But, by the same token, progress is often made through >the development of new tools and that cannot take place until it is >admitted that the contents of our present toolbox are inadequate. With the >power we now have to manipulate data structures (as was pointed out by Una >Smith) I just can't help but feel that the information development tools >necessary to finally bring our nomenclatural problems under control already >exist. All that is required is for us (= the paleo. profession) to develop >the required expertise along with the collective will to use them. Sure. I agree that we should continue our search for a better way. All species are historical entities--we just let the biologists define species for us in an ahistorical sense. They do the same for ecology, biogeography, and even evolutionary biology (although these folks should know better). Only paleo provides them with time and change = history. They can't do it and some of them bad-mouth paleo because we are beset with names, stratigraphic gaps, and data, that they think is unimportant. Well, here at Berkeley we are trying to make headway with our biological colleagues by emphasizing that biology in general is historical. I think we've made progress, perhaps because we are in the same department now. But it is largely a matter of PR amongst them. But we don't use names! > >Jere's point about continuity in a down-sized mode is well-taken. But, I >don't think we have to be either happy or satisfied with the current trends >just as I don't think that we have to be either happy or satisfied with the >current nomenclature. It seems far too easy to just throw up one's hands >and say, "This is the best we can do!" Norm and I agree and disagree again. We should not be happy with current trends, but let's not confuse our dilemma by putting our occasional disciplinary squabbles about nomenclature anywhere near the forefront of our problems. Our problems are much, much greater. Either we find a way to make ourselves more useful in science or education, or we accept what has happened to us. I vote for the former. Jere's right in that >paleontologists do seem to get obsessed over philosophical issues. [Note: >though I don't think paleontologists spend any more time complaining about >the state of their science than others.] I think we do because we have always been in a cyclic employment environment and we have mostly solved geological problems for other people. When "paleobiology" emerged, most of those practicing the "new discipline" seemed, and still do, satisfied with themselves and their careers because they worked with their own problems and there were no complaints. Indeed, even biologists began to subscribe to Paleobiology. When university paleontologists were being offered 2 or 3X their salaries to go to industry in the late 70's, I heard few complaints. Indeed, after the appearance of my Spring, 1981 paper (What, if anything, is micropaleontology? in Paleobiology), I was chastized enormously at the Fall Geol Soc. Amer. meeting for lots of things I said in that paper, but particularly for my prediction that micropaleontologists were multiplying themselves at a rate far too fast (p. 178) and that we would soon face an employment problem in the oil and educational industries. It seemed to me, standing before 90+ people at that Plankton People meeting, that everyone took exception to that, except two students who were having trouble getting a job. Unfortunately, my prediction (which was merely an extrapolation of production of micropaleontologists vs. opportunites) came true, as it was bound to. I was not some kind of prophet, I simply stepped back to look at micropaleontology, as I was asked by Tom Schopf to do in the article, and tried to put the discipline in perspective. I would urge that we all step back now, take a look at paleontology and its subdisciplines, and see where they are going, who is going there, and why. Nomenclature was not our problem in 1981, 1965, or now. Ideas were and are! >However, in this case I believe >there is ample reason to rethink our ideas about nomenclature and >classification, just as we are rethinking our ideas about paleontology's >role within science as a whole. Certainly we have nothing to lose by >engaging in discussions of this sort and (potentially at least) there is >much to be gained. Except time. So I'd suggest that we drop the nomenclature problem until we have a solid proposal, and think about how to put paleo back on the map--anybody's map! I do, however, support Norm's suggestion about classification, because it has a good chance of advancing our science. But it is not our image problem--we made that ourselves. >However, since this looks like a potentially long-lived >discussion, and since there may be PaleoNet subscribers who would like the >option as to whether or not they continue participating or listening in, I >propose that we move this debate over to DataBaseNet. Too late. Sorry. Jere Jere H. Lipps Professor, Department of Integrative Biology Director, Museum of Paleontology University of California at Berkeley Berkeley, CA 94720 510-642-9006 fax 642-1822 jlipps@ucmp1.berkeley.edu
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