Dating systems: BC and AD, or BCE and CE?

[Draconis]

But what if in a paroxysm of national pride, China starts dating everything in terms of the Chinese Calendar?

Who says they don't? But if they want to be published in the (still) mainly Western scientific journals, they know better than to do so. the same goes for any Jewish or Muslim scholars: Jews as well as Muslims have of course their own dating systems, but I'm not sure whether this is included in articles that are not meant for publication abroad.

Ah, but the day might come when that shifts somewhere else... those future scientists could toss the whole system out.

Bottom line of all this silliness is that we can fuss and fume and rant about deconstructivists and The Godless French, but its not going to change anyting and if scientists want to be published they will use the system everyone else uses as you point out. In this case, its BCE/CE Lets get back to What happened, not what are we going to call when it happened? The main ting is that when somebody gives us a date, we know what they're talking about.