[meteorite-list] Re: who does what for what cause?

[Darren Garrison]

On Fri, 17 Jun 2005 19:28:05 -0400, "MarkF" <mafer at imagineopals.com> wrote:

>Then in the 90's, the trials repete themselves with a flair.
>The Larson's are attacked by a fairly well known university, under the 
>skirts of the FBI and Federal prosecutors, and charges of theft of materials 
>from government lands and all the hoopla that goes on with it.
>Well, to make a long story short. Larson wasn't convicted of theft, nor of 
>cheating a Native American, nor of anything else that would have legally 
>kept Sue, the T. Rex from his possesion. But, because the FBI could somehow 
>prove that some years before Sue was even found, he had left the US with 
>over $10k that he didn't declare, they could keep the fossil and "auction" 
>it off to the highest bidder. Larson got 18 months.
>Was that justice? Was that the "right" thing to do?

I've read a few books on the Sue debacle (and followed events at the time) and in that particular
case, I believe that the Black Hills Institute was both qualified to correctly prep and preserve Sue
and should have been allowed to retain possesion and build a museum around Sue as was their dream.
I've never been to the BHI personally, but I'm willing to trust Bob Bakker's opinion on who is
capable of caring for a T. rex and he concidered their equipment and their talent to be fully good
enough to care for and study Sue.  However, in THIS case, I'm being disgusted by someone blatantly
doing exactly what the FBI accused Peter Larson of-- attempting to sell a rare and important fossil
to anyone who is willing to pay the most for it.  And who sneers at the idea of anyone who is
pinko-commie enough not to eat that up with a spoon.

>I think people have to understand that museums are not always the pristine 
>center of learning and study they are made out to be.

I suppose that I could have spoken better in that I don't necessarily think that something rare must
be a display specimen, but that it should be available for study.

With meteorites the situation is much different than with fossils.

Let's say that you find some deeply rare meteorite type-- say, for example, you find a new
chassignite, and one that is slightly different than the original.  Lying there on the ground, it
has a scientific value.  You pick it up and take it home, it still has essentially the same
scientific value.  You cut it up, send away part for classification and study, keep part, and sell
the rest to collectors and interested institutions.  It still has essentially the same value.  With
modern tools, the research can still be done with just pieces of the whole, and very little
knowledge has been lost by selling pieces to collectors.

But with a fossil, while it is lying in place, it has a certain scientific value.  You pick it up
and take it home, and you have destroyed a great deal of the value you would have had by studying
the context, position, surroundings, etc.  You very much lose information by removing something from
situ.  And if you cut it up, you are also very much losing information.  So you can't cut a fossil
(such as a fossil egg) into lots of pieces, send a few to study, keep a few fragments, and sell the
rest to collectors without destroying the scientific value of the piece.  It's all or nothing--
either it goes to science and is available to increase our knowledge of the history of life on
Earth, or it goes on the shelf in some rich guy's house.

Think about if that hypothetical different cassignite was treated the same way-- the entire thing
going into a single private collection and none at all going into reseach (never mind how you would
know what it is in that situation).  Would you not concider that to be a big problem?  Would you not
concider that to be a massive crime against science?

I'm not against private ownership of fossils or meteorites.  I'm not against people making a living
selling fossils or meteorites.  I own fossils and meteorites.  But the fossils and meteorites I own
are stuff that, if I offered them to a museum, the curator would pull out a drawer full of better
examples and laugh at me.  No science is being lost by my chunks of desert chondrites,
Flexicalymenes, and Scaphites.  But if something so rare that the selling of the fossil/meteorite in
question entirely denies scientists access to what could be learned from that fossil or meteorite, I
think that is ethically wrong and should (possibly, but I'm not too decided on this point) be
illegal.  Give the finder a fair finder's fee, yes, but don't let him sell it to any ass with a wad
of cash.

A pterosaur egg-- one of less 5 known to exist anywhere, and the only one to ever be found in North
America, wouldn't even be in a grey area-- it would be smack-dab in the middle of the "red zone"
with klaxxons blaring that this should go to formal study, not the auction block.  And anyone who
thinks that's it's a-okay and peachy-keen capatilistic to sell something utterly rare and important
to the highest bidder is no scientist and no lover of science.  

But given the unlikelyness that two seperate people were attempting to sell two seperate objects
supposed to be pterosaur eggs this past week, with one having a piece of sandstone and the other one
having a pterosaur egg, I have to assume (since he refuses to answer any points about the "egg"
itself and instead just gives snide, sarcastic jabs showing his true character) that his "egg" is,
indeed, the same "egg" identified as a piece of sandstone.  If that is the case, then I hope he does
manage to find a buyer.  And I hope the buyer finds out that it is a piece of sandstone and sues his
rear and he has to use some of that prepaid legal service he's peddling.