1336


Journal of Paleontology 91(6):1334–1336


passionate people think is “important;” it has to be important enough to enough people to compete for resources with all of the other “important” things out there. It is one of the ironies of the decline in industrial


application of our discipline that paleontology today has assumed an important role in diagnosing and predicting some of the nega- tive effects of the industrialization it did so much to enable.As the future of global climate and biodiversity have become increas- ingly pressing scientific and public concerns, it has become clear than we cannot understand the present or prepare for the future without a thorough understanding of the past. Paleontology now increasingly finds itself relevant to this discussion, as exemplified by the emerging subdiscipline of Conservation Paleobiology, which PRI-affiliated researchers have played a major role in birthing (e.g., Flessa, 2002; Dietl et al., 2015). Paleontology has provided at least two major insights to


humanity: that the Earth and its life have a long history of change, and that organisms have been profoundly affecting geological processes, and vice versa, during all of that history. As obvious as these insightsmay be to professional paleontologists, they are not at all tomost people. In its data and point of view, paleontology is uniquely able to tell us things we would otherwise not know, and without constant reminders of which our society will have difficulty surviving in the decades and centuries ahead. How appropriate then that PRI is also unique—in its focus and its passion on this very special view of life and Earth.


References


Allmon, W.D., 2004, Opening a new natural history museum in twenty-first century America: a case study in historic perspective, in Leviton, A., ed., Natural History Institutions: Past, Present, and Future: Proceedings


Allmon, W.D., 2007, The first 75 years. A history of the Paleontological Research Institution: Paleontological Research Institution Special Publication No. 29, 135 p.


of the California Academy of Sciences, v. 55, Supplement 1, no. 11, p. 245–266.


Allmon, W.D., 2008, Everything is paleontology: American Paleontologist, v. 16, no. 1, p. 1.


Allmon, W.D., and Ross, R.M., 2011, Paleontology, nature, and natural history: an old new approach to “environmental education”: American Paleonto- logist, v. 19, no. 2, p. 22–25.


Allmon, W.D., and White, R.D., 2000, Introduction, in White, R.D., and Allmon, W.D., eds., Guidelines for the Management and Curation of Invertebrate Fossil Collections: Paleontological Society Special Publications, No. 10, p. 1–4.


Brice, W.R., 1996, Gilbert Dennison Harris: a life with fossils: Bulletins of American Paleontology, No. 350, 154 p.


Caster, K.E., 1973, Presentation of the Paleontological Society Medal to Katherine Van Winkle Palmer: Journal of Paleontology, v. 47, p. 599–601.


Dietl, G.P., Kidwell, S.M., Brenner, M., Burney, D.A., Flessa, K.W., Jackson, S.T., and Koch, P.L., 2015, Conservation paleobiology: leveraging knowledge of the past to inform conservation and restoration: Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, v. 43, p. 79–103.


Emerson, R.W., 1841, Self reliance, in Emerson, R.W., ed., Essays: First Series: Boston, J. Munroe and Company, p. 35–73.


Flessa, K.W., 2002, Conservation paleobiology: American Paleontologist, v. 10, p. 2–5.


Glenister, B.F., Bolton, T.E., Eldredge, N., Silberling, N.J., Sweet, W.C., and Waller, T.R., 1977, Fossil invertebrates—Collections in North American repositories: a report of the Paleontological Society Ad Hoc Committee on North American Resources in Invertebrate Paleontology (CONARIP): Iowa City, Iowa, Paleontological Society and University of Iowa, p 67.


Pojeta, J., 1988, Invertebrate paleontology working paper: Association of Systematics Collections—National Science Foundation workshop (unpublished), p. 8.


Rhodes, F.H.T., 1996, Foreword, in Brice, W.R., ed., Gilbert Dennison Harris: a life with fossils: Bulletins of American Paleontology, no. 350, p. 5–7.


Paleontological Research Institution Ithaca, NY 14850


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