The Role of Paleontology in the Formation of Scientific World-View

Svetlana T. Remizova^1,

¹Herzen State Pedagogical University, Department of Geology and Geoecology, St.Petersburg, Russia

Cite this paper

Svetlana T. Remizova. The Role of Paleontology in the Formation of Scientific World-View. Journal of Geosciences and Geomatics. 2013; 1(1):36-40. doi: 10.12691/JGG-1-1-6

Abstract

Paleontology is the key for getting the knowledge about the history of our planet. Only fossils are the evidences of the origin and long evolution of life on the Earth. Nevertheless, many anti-evolutional theories reappear today as well as at the dawn of scientific cognition of the world. Mass media may be unwittingly promoting those ideas into the social consciousness. The views of catastrophic extinction of some fossil groups recently have become very popular again. In addition, apologists of the catastrophic explanations of extinction ignore many factors of intricate relationships into a biocenosis. The main factors that should be taking into consideration are a protracted period of extinction of any taxonomic group and a selectivity of extinction. Those data contradict the catastrophic ideas in the evolution theory. The main task of the paleontologists is to advocate more profound study of Earth history and the reality of life’s evolution on it. Most of the macroevolution’s consistent patterns were established after obtaining paleontological data. And now we can demonstrate them on many fossils groups. In this report, we discuss the evolutionary path of Paleozoic foraminifera.

Keywords

paleontology, evolution, extinction, Fusulinoida, education.

Copyright

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