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Invirtation to participate in an Electronic Conference



I am resending Jere Lipps message concerning the Electonic conference
related to the Paleontology in the 21st Century Wrokshop to be held in
Frankfurt German in a couple weeks.  Several people had difficulty reading
it because of reformatting in the e-mail system, others just receive
something described by Paul Willis as Vogon enema.  If you received the
message without any problems, please ignore the current message.  I am
hoping that sending this on a different platform will make it readable for
those of you having difficulty.  Your comments are needed!  This must be a
dialogue among all paleontologists and interested people and we encourage
you to speak your mind on the topics summarized or any other aspects of the
meeting that you think should be shared.  It is planned to summarize these
comments in a fional document for further discussion, hopefully as an
electornic conference if this one is successful.

I have also attached the message in a Word file.

Below is the reformatted text of Jere's message.

Rich Lane
hrlane@netropolis.net
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PaleoNetters:


Paleo 21:  Paleontology in the 21st Century is a workshop to be held at the
Senckenberg Museum Sept. 3-9.  It's purpose is to suggest goals to the
paleontological community, and those it interacts with, for the start of
the next century of paleontology.


Because vigorous discussion among the participants is desired, the Workshop
was necessarily limited in attendance.  The Organizing Committee desires
two things: 1.  That the attendees be able to represent a broad, if perhaps
incomplete, spectrum of paleontological concerns; and 2.  That the entire
paleontological community worldwide be included in the final suggestions. 
Of course, we recognize that the best way to do these would be to include
all paleontologists everywhere; we feel badly and we apologize that this is
simply impossible for many practical reasons. 


Electronic Conference and Reports: Since the number of Workshop
participants is limited, we do not surmise that we can anticipate or expect
agreement from all paleontologists.  Towards this end, we are holding an
Electronic Conference on Paleontology in the 21st Century on PaleoNet. 
Everyone interested in any aspect of paleontology is invited to this
conference.

To start it, we ask participants to read the preliminary draft statements
assembled as discussion papers for the Workshop.  These are posted on the
WWW at http://www.nhm.ac.uk/paleonet/paleo21/.   We invite discussion,
comment, suggestions and criticism of these papers. This phase of the
Conference should take place before Sept. 1, so that the Conference
comments can be considered at the Workshop for incorporation in the DRAFT
Paleo 21 Report.  


Within a month or so after the end of the Workshop, the Draft Report will
be posted on the same site for the second phase of the Electronic
Conference.  At this time, Conference commentary on the Draft Report will
be seriously considered by the authors of each section and by the editors
of the Report as a basis for revision of and/or incorporation into the
<bold>Final Report.


The Final Report will be published and widely distributed.  It should be
regarded as a point of departure for discussion of paleontology in the 21st
century, not a plan for it.  The results should be considered by all
paleontologists and modified or rejected after careful thought for your own
use.  Our goal is to provoke those thoughts from the paleontological
community with the hope that action can ensue.  We want the Final Report to
be as useful to individual paleontologists, as well as organizations and
groups everywhere, as possible.  This we believe can be accomplished only
by inclusion of the entire paleontological community through this
Electronic Conference.  Please participate.


To Participate:  Please post your comments, suggestions and criticisms on
PaleoNet.  Be as kindly or brutal as you care to be. You can be nasty too,
although that would set the wrong tone for acceptance because we are
sensitive people!!

When posting to PaleoNet, please indicate on the subject line
Paleo21-<topic> so that our Conference can be easily identified.  The
subjects in the preliminary discussion papers are listed below and on the
WWW Site.  You should feel free to open discussion on any other topic you
believe should be considered at the Workshop or in the Report.

Topics to be covered are categorized into 3 major areas and these major
areas and their sub categories are listed below.  Included also are the
names of Topic Coordinators.  Preliminary delegate reports and a listing of
all topic delegates are linked to the topic titles.


Organizations
(Our employers, funders, and societies)

a. Academia                       K. Flessa

b. Commercial Collectors          M. Triebold 

c. Consultancies                  J. Fenton

d. Funding Agencies      C. Maples/E. Fluegel/ D. Maronde 

e. Government                     L. Edwards 

f. Independent Paleontologists    C. Cozart

g. Industry                       J.Armentrout 

h. Museums/Institutes             D. Erwin/W. Ziegler 

i. Societies                      J. Gall 


Paleontological Themes
(The products of our work)

a. Astropaleobiology              S. Cady/M. Walter 

b. Biostratigraphy/Geochronology  M. Simmons 

c. Functional Morphology          N. Schmidt-Kittler 

d. Geobiology/Biogeochemistry     A. Knoll/J. Hayes 

e. Macroevolution                 D. Jablonski 

f. Paleoclimatology               J. Parrish 

g. Paleoecology/Paleobiology      F. Fuersich 

h. Paleoceanography               W. W. Hay

i. Systematics/Taxonomy           D. Briggs


Paleontological Infastructure
(The things that assist us)

a. Computers/Quantification/Databases  N. MacLeod 

b. Curating/Collection/Extraction/Preparation  W. Allmon

c. Media                          J. Fischman 

d. Publications                   S. Bengtson 

e. Public Outreach                R. Stucky/J. Scothmoor 

f. Regulation                     C. L. May/C. Benjamini 

g. University Education           S. Carlson


Additional Reports

a. Vertebrate Paleontology        J. Flynn


We hope you will enjoy the Conference!


Jere H. Lipps, for the Organizing and Scientific Committees, Paleo 21







vogon (Microsoft Word Document)