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Tom and all: First, if these are your concerns, THEN PUT THEM IN THE DOCUMENT! The whole point of this exercise is that everyone who has a stake has a chance to include their ideas - if there is no place for them, then make a place. This is a community document, so feel free/compelled to add what *you* want. THE DOCUMENT SHOULD BE INCLUSIVE OF THE WIDEST POSSIBLE RANGE OF IDEAS; this includes how we will provide "guidance to students and early career paleontologists." Second - let's be clear - I wrote the initial document and am thus responsible for its setup; there was no "group." It thus reflects my own approach to the issues involved and was not intended to be comprehensive (far from it). Again, *everyone* is free to add, subtract, modify, or start from scratch - it is a starting point only. Third - as was discussed at the NAPC discussion (and forcibly stressed by Warren Allmon), the issue of loss of specialists is of critical concern to all of us. See item 7 in Part I - we need someone to address where the loss is most critical and why this is an issue. The loss of specialists clearly threatens irreparable harm to the entire field. One goal of this document is to allow us to make this case to those who are funding paleontology and make sure that the new specialists are trained. Fourth - that said, those scientific communities that have been successful at obtaining and maintaining funding have articulated their long-term goals in a coherent and forceful manner. That is the aim of our producing this document; to identify these goals and what we must do to meet them. This includes the issues of whether will we have the knowledge base to allow us to progress. I hope this clarifies things - Roy Roy E. Plotnick Professor Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences University of Illinois at Chicago 845 W. Taylor St. Chicago, IL 60607 plotnick@uic.edu office phone: 312-996-2111 fax: 312-413-2279 lab phone: 312-355-1342 web page: http://www.uic.edu/~plotnick/plotnick.htm "The scientific celebrities, forgetting their molluscs and glacial periods, gossiped about art, while devoting themselves to oysters and ices with characteristic energy.." -Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
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