Re:paleonet Burgess Shale Fossil Theft

["Clive Trueman" <Trueman.Clive@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

For those who feel palaeontology is backwater science:

Please feel free to sideline all scientific attempts to predict global climate, and the physical and ecological effects of climate change.

Current climate models are based upon, and tested against, records of climate from deep (and not so deep) time. These ancient climate records are derived from palaeontological data, using palaeontological methods, and are as accurate as they are laregly because of the detailed work done previously by other palaeontologists.

Palaeontology is not just a bunch of old men in tweed arguing over dead lizards.

The value of specific localities may not be immediately apparent, and may not lie in the asthetic quality of the fossils contained - but may lie in the fact that this apparently unimpressive little roadcut is the only known outcrop of rock covering a particular time and geographic area. Lose that outcrop, or the fossils contained (or specifically the precise context of the fossils contained), and you loose permamently a portion of the climatic/environmental and ecological history of the Earth. 

Take a quick look at the excuses used for not acting swiftly on CO2 emissions - any uncertainty in climate models is lept upon as a reason not to act - to postpone difficult policy decisions. The more data we loose from the fossil record, the harder it gets to solve these uncertainties, and to have confidence in our ability to predict where the hell we are going. It does matter.

Cheers!
Clive Trueman