Over the last fifty years, the explosion of molecular biology has imposed an unprecedented intellectual and institutional shock on the old "natural history" tradition. In order to survive, pre-molecular biology had to undergo a sort of decantation. Old disciplines have emerged as if transformed and rejuvenated.
Today, the global urgency of environmental problems demonstrates more than ever the extreme usefulness of naturalist approaches, at all scales of perception, including the molecular.
In his closing lecture at the Collège de France, Armand de Ricqlès shows how paleontology, a discipline known as "traditional", has been able to renew itself and survive in a time of great change.
