Why is Paleontology Important? Paleontologists study prehistoric life, seeking to piece together the story of how species evolved and how ancient ecosystems developed in response to an ever-changing Earth. And researchers do so with only the tiniest drops of evidence: fossilized remains of ancient life, from which we can infer much about our world as it was millions of years ago, teeming with life. In documenting evolution, paleontologists often can link the changes they see in species over time with large-scale changes in the environment of the entire planet, or of specific regions.
Today, as society faces global issues such as climate change, the rapid degradation of habitats and accelerated extinction of species, we turn for insight not to "futurists" but to paleontologists, who often can demonstrate with empirical data from the fossil record how Earth and its inhabitants have responded to great changes -- some of them catastrophic -- in the past. |