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Xavier Panades I Blas wrote:
>
> Hi everybody!
>
> I have had some hot discussions and agreements with many colleagues in my
> private email about amn issue which, I think is worthy to bring up to the
> list.
<snip>
The purpose of scientific publication isn't to validate the
existence of nations or cultures. The purpose is to communicate
information clearly to a wide audience.
I don't know what the most "scientific" way is to designate localities
--
but the *clearest* way is to use lat/long, plus any other official
mapping coordinate system (such as the township, range, and section
as used in much of the USA), plus distance from a nearby town or local
landmark ("9 km NW of the town of Possum Grape"), plus the officially
recognized political subdivisions (unless there aren't any, or they're
unusually volatile -- I imagine describing localities in Somalia or
Bosnia
would present problems, but even then, lat/long and local landmarks
will be useful.)
If I were to describe a fossil as coming from "Euskadi", probably
few people would know what I was talking about. Even if I wrote
"Basque Country", that's not precise, nor is it always locatable
on standard maps. But if I describe the locality as being in
"Navarra" -- that's an official province of Spain as defined by
the internationally recognized government. That's what will be
listed in atlases if other people have to look up the locality;
that's presumably what will be used to index maps and reports about
the area. This is not meant as disrespect to Basque nationalism and
self-determination! But it's not the function of a paleontological
paper to make a stance on that issue -- its function is to communicate
with a minimum of ambiguity.
I myself have been tempted to describe some of my fossils as coming
from "The Free Citizens' Republic That Don't Recognize The Unjust
Laws Of The Goddamn Washington Government So Git the Hell Off Our
Property Before We Shoot Ya Like A Mad Dawg". But instead I always
use the standard designation of "Pahrump, Nye County, Nevada, USA",
because those are the designators that anyone else in the world could
use to find more information about my locality.
--
Ben
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