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

[Dave Freeman mjwy]

Or....
Someone bangs and clangs the super cymbals on capt'n Bloods attempt at 
commerce by claiming the egg is sandstone and thus killing a chance for 
the poor Kansas dirt farmer's kid that will never have a future as the 
real egg the kid spent five summers looking for on his grandpaws 
worthless chalk ranch  is his ticket to a college 
education???????????????  And the doo do-gooder scientists want some 
something of value for nothing (and they know people with money that 
WOULD pay if they had to but ALWAYS expect it for free)....(like 
environmental zealots) always wanting but not in their back yard......no 
drilling but they drive a gas sucking SUV.   Save Woodsy Owl but live in 
a half million square foot wood mansion in the forest.
Society has trained us to watch out for crackpots... on both sides of 
the fence.  Shell oil just donated $2 million to help committees and 
sage grouse in Wyoming....how many extra bird eggs do we think that 
would buy?  How many additional jobs would $2 million make so poor 
workers would not have to work 90 hours (no kidding) per week in a 
dangerous profession?  I say  buy the egg, science can pay going rate. 
 Works with other commerce, who thinks they are so special? My fish 
associates donate plenty to science annually.  Their selling price for 
the only whole eohippus horse $1.5 million.
 Somebody has the money, maybe Oprah, maybe Steven Speilberg, get a fund 
going. Make an omelet!
Power to the bloody pirates of free commerce!
D F.

Darren Garrison wrote:

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