Re: Future of palaeontology

[Una Smith <una@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Bill Shear wrote:

> In our discussion of this subject we should recall Art Boucout's
> oft-reiterated suggestion that the right place for paleontologists is in
> biology, not geology, departments.  I strongly agree with this [...]

So do I, for the same reasons.  For nearly a generation, paleontology
was an important tool used by stratigraphic geologists.  Now, that tool
has been largely replaced by others, and stratigraphy also appears to
be in decline (at least on the better-known continents).  This trend
seems particularly clear in the publication record of paleopalynology.
The history of paleontology at Yale reflects this:  the concentration
of paleontology faculty has shifted over time from biology to geology
and now appears to be heading back to biology again.

For what it's worth, prior to the creation of sci.bio.paleontology,
there was a long-running discussion in news.groups about whether the 
newsgroup should go in sci.bio.* or sci.geo.*.  The discussion was
settled by a general consensus that, whatever the historical position
of paleontology has been, the field does appear to be shifting now
into a new and very interesting alignment with (neo) biology, thanks
in large part to new methods of systematic analysis.

But many neo-biologists know virtually nothing about fossils, even of
the groups they work on!  That's partly because many of them never had
an opportunity to take a course in paleontology.

	Una Smith
	Department of Biology
	Yale University