| Abstract Detail
Mesozoic and Cenozoic plant evolution and biotic change: A symposium in honor of Ruth Stockey Stevenson, Dennis [1]. Paleobotany (aka Palaeobotany) is Botany Plus. A Paleobotanist must not only know botany and all of its subdisciplines, they must also be well versed, perhaps actually be, a geologist. They need to understand extant life cycles in detail cross all groups including fungi, anatomy and morphology as well as systematics and development. They must keep up on the latest developments, methods and approaches across plant groups and subdisciplines. Clearly, they are the most eclectic botanists we have and the ones with the best understanding of the whole field. I would appear that recently a severe reductionist approach has sway with the unfortunate result that specialists in molecular approaches fail neither ‘to see the fossils for the rocks’ nor ‘the plants for the gel.’ Yet it seems that many paleobotanists, in contrast, do try to cover it all, and those that do can serve as models for the next generation. One exemplar has been and is Ruth Stockey. We just have to get the reductionists to understand and embrace being eclectic.
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1 - The NY Botanical Garden, 2900 Southern Blvd, Bronx, NY, 10458-5126, USA
Keywords:
eclectic
reductionist.
Presentation Type: Symposium Presentation
Session: SY14
Location: Salon 5/The Shaw Conference Centre
Date: Wednesday, July 29th, 2015
Time: 11:15 AM
Number: SY14008
Abstract ID:814
Candidate for Awards:None |
