
<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
document.write('<div id="oa_widget"></div>');
document.write('<script type="text/javascript" src="https://www.openaire.eu/index.php?option=com_openaire&view=widget&format=raw&projectId=undefined&type=result"></script>');
-->
</script>
doi: 10.1038/049053a0
IN your Notes for October 26, on p. 621, you follow the Editor of the Zoological Record in suggesting that, under the present financial conditions, palaeontology should be removed from the volume issued by the Zoological Society, and provided for by the palaeontologists themselves. Against such retrogression we desire to protest. “Everyone knows,” as you say, “that an incomplete record is of very little use”; and how absurdly incomplete a record would be that took no account of palaeontology! The objectors probably spring mostly from the ranks of systematic zoologists. We will deal with them on their own ground. The systematic position of Limulus has long been a vexed question, which no one can attempt to solve without consulting the work of Malcolm Laurie on the fossil Eurypterids. The classification of the Crinoids has troubled zoologists since the days of Johannes Muller; but neither he nor anyone ever dreamed of settling it without reference to palaeontology. Students of recent Bryozoa will not be grateful to those who keep them in ignorance of J. W. Gregory's lately published work on the Bryozoa of the early Tertiary rocks. And so we might go on ad infinitum. Another argument that may affect the systematists is that if they reject all names of fossil genera and species from the record, they will have no means of knowing whether the new names they may wish to propose have been used before or not. It is even possible that some of them may unwittingly describe as new forms already described by some unknown palaeontologist. It is hardly necessary to remind the morphologists, embryologists, and zoogeographers of the help that they constantly receive from the palaeontologists; they, at least, will not wish to have the record made incomplete.
citations This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically). | 0 | |
popularity This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network. | Average | |
influence This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically). | Average | |
impulse This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network. | Average |
views | 34 | |
downloads | 4 |