Biology is the study of life, and while fossils might help with that, too much fossilization leans too close to geology for me. Being interested in life, dead organisms are only somewhat interesting and fossilized ones are even less interesting. I would be more interested in paleobotany. It is critical for you as a scientist to keep your skeptical mind focused upon this and fix it wherever you find it. The idea that we would find an organism unchanged after the long period of time between the Devonian and now or the Jurassic and now is absurd.
All modern organisms are the product of evolution and are derived from ancient stocks.
As you can guess it is possible to insert a subjective bias into evolutionary ideas by this kind of differential interpretation. Some areas of science are more prone to this kind of bias than others. Go back to the Course Schedule .