RE: Future of palaeontology

[jon sloan <hcgeo003@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I also must come down on the side of Biology. Remember that Geology, as
much as we love it, is the same as Chemistry, Physics, Biology except that
the time factor is paramount; it is the science of temporal change as
applied to the other sciences. Although in many areas, like stratigraphy,
it has unique applications. Come to think of it evolution should be a
Geologic topic but, except in SOME :-( paleo classes, it is biology topic.
Biologists could use our sense of scale at times and we theirs. I can
remember way back at the second paleo conference at the Univ of Kansas
when Gould and Eldridge's following dominated the meeting (mid '70's). At
that meeting I was having a few with some evolutionary biologists and they
were not kind to the geologists and thought that it was all some sort of
elabrate joke being played on paleontologists. To them punct. equil. (by
other names) was old hat Mayr stuff, which of course it was (and is). 
 
   Jon