Re: Predictions for the future!?! (posted for R. Kaesler)

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Date: Tue, 05 Sep 1995 10:19:17 -0500 (CDT)
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From: kaesler@KUHUB.CC.UKANS.EDU (Roger L. Kaesler)
Subject: Re: Predictions for the future!?!
To: paleonet-owner@nhm.ac.uk
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Dear colleagues:

Norm MacLeod has raised some interesting questions about the directions of
paleontological research.  Where are we going in the 90s?  What will be the
new directions in the last half of this decade and the coming century?  I
wish our focus could be more work in which we try to understand morphology,
paleoecology, and all that.  I also wish we could do more with the
geochemical side of taphonomy--that is, diagenesis of fossils.  I fear,
however, that much of our work will be about data bases.

I spend a great deal of my time and effort on data bases, a topic I hope to
address in detail on PaleoNet in a couple of weeks when I have some things
to report.  Because I spend so much time at this, it might seem strange
that I say I fear our emphasis will be on data bases.  Here is why.  We
paleontologists have put together a lot of really good information about
all aspects of fossils.  At the NAPC meeting in Boulder, Dave Raup chided
us for being the only science that, after 150 years of intense effort,
still says that our data are not good.  Dave is right.  Our data are good,
and employing them properly can help us answer a lot of questions.

The fact is, however, that putting paleontological data into a data base so
they can be used by others is not really paleontology.  Such activity is of
vital importance, but it is better regarded as information science.
Paleontology will be in trouble if too many of us spend a lot of time
organizing old data and very little time generating new information.  We
have got to make sure that the paleontologists of the coming decades study
fossils and things about fossils and that they continue to concern
themselves with getting new information.  We must build on the information
collected by past generations, but if we cease to investigate new problems
in the field with real fossils collected from real rocks, we will find
ourselves becoming the librarians of the fossil record, and our science
will wither.

Best wishes,

Roger

--
Roger L. Kaesler
Paleontological Institute
The University of Kansas
121 Lindley Hall
Lawrence, Kansas 66045-2911
(913) 864-3338 = telephone
(913) 864-5276 = FAX