Paleonet: PS Presidents prior to David Raup

Roy Plotnick plotnick at uic.edu
Thu Jul 16 15:35:38 UTC 2015


On 7/16/2015 10:11 AM, Roger D. K. Thomas wrote:

Good question.  Here is the statement from Raup's Presidential Address, 
published in 1978 in JP (opening sentence!) :
"I  feel in a somewhat strange position today as the first president of 
The Society who has never described a species."

I don't know if he was ever challenged on that statement.

An anecdote: Bernie Kummel was Raup's advisor and visited U. Rochester 
to give a talk. At the beginning of the talk, he called Dave forward and 
handed him a fossil, with instructions to have it identified bythe end 
of the presentation.
- Roy


> Dear Colleagues,
>
>      The NY Times obituary is very fine.  But, is that highlighted 
> statement true?  Has either Jim Valentine or Alan Shaw ever described 
> a new species?  I have not probed further back than that.  The point 
> made by this claim appropriately characterizes the nature of Dave's 
> contributions, but is it strictly accurate?
>
>      Kind regards,   Roger
>
> On Thu, Jul 16, 2015 at 10:15 AM, Roy Plotnick <plotnick at uic.edu 
> <mailto:plotnick at uic.edu>> wrote:
>
>     On 7/16/2015 7:51 AM, Alan Kabat wrote:
>>     http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/16/us/david-m-raup-who-transformed-field-of-paleontology-dies-at-82.html?_r=0
>>     Today's /New York Times/ (July 16) has a lengthy obituary of
>>     David Raup, which humorously notes that:  "He never dug up a
>>     dinosaur and was the first president of the Paleontological
>>     Society ... never to have formally described a new species in the
>>     scientific literature."  The obituary does a fine job of
>>     summarizing his numerous contributions to paleontology.
>>     Alan Kabat
>>
>>
>>     _______________________________________________
>>     Paleonet mailing list
>>     Paleonet at nhm.ac.uk  <mailto:Paleonet at nhm.ac.uk>
>>     http://mailman.nhm.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/paleonet
>     The never having described a fossil was part of his Presidential
>     Address.
>
>     -- 
>     Roy E. Plotnick
>     Professor
>     Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences
>     University of Illinois at Chicago
>     845 W. Taylor St.
>     Chicago, IL 60607
>
>     E-mail:plotnick at uic.edu  <mailto:plotnick at uic.edu>
>     office 2454 SES
>     office phone:312-996-2111  <tel:312-996-2111>      fax:312-413-2279  <tel:312-413-2279>
>     lab phone:312-355-1342  <tel:312-355-1342>
>
>
>
>     web page:http://www.uic.edu/~plotnick/plotnick.htm  <http://www.uic.edu/%7Eplotnick/plotnick.htm>
>
>     "The scientific celebrities, forgetting their molluscs and glacial periods, gossiped about art, while devoting themselves to oysters and ices with characteristic energy.." -Little Women, Louisa  May Alcott
>
>
>     _______________________________________________
>     Paleonet mailing list
>     Paleonet at nhm.ac.uk <mailto:Paleonet at nhm.ac.uk>
>     http://mailman.nhm.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/paleonet
>
>
>
>
> -- 
>> Roger D. K. Thomas
>> John Williamson Nevin Professor of Geosciences
>> ___________________________________
>> Department of Earth and Environment
>> Franklin & Marshall College
>> P.O. Box 3003
>> Lancaster
>> Pennsylvania 17604-3003
>> ______________________________
>> Office telephone: 717-291-4135
>> Office fax: 717-291-4186
>> Home telephone: 717-560-0486
>> http://www.fandm.edu/rthomas
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Paleonet mailing list
> Paleonet at nhm.ac.uk
> http://mailman.nhm.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/paleonet


-- 
Roy E. Plotnick
Professor
Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences
University of Illinois at Chicago
845 W. Taylor St.
Chicago, IL 60607

E-mail: plotnick at uic.edu
office 2454 SES
office phone: 312-996-2111     fax: 312-413-2279
lab phone: 312-355-1342



web page: http://www.uic.edu/~plotnick/plotnick.htm

"The scientific celebrities, forgetting their molluscs and glacial periods, gossiped about art, while devoting themselves to oysters and ices with characteristic energy.." -Little Women, Louisa  May Alcott

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.paleonet.org/pipermail/paleonet/attachments/20150716/854454c4/attachment.htm>


More information about the Paleonet mailing list