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

[joseph_town at att.net]

Ok Darren. So you stub your toe on a crystal skull with a pristine meteorite, at least it looks like one, visible inside. You then notice the bones of what looks like a very large hominid, 9 ft. tall, wearing a Conquistador helmet and holding a Viking battle-axe, forget that you're not sure it's a Viking battle-axe, lets just say you know. This all takes place on an Indian reservation in New Mexico. How would you proceed?

Bill


 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: Darren Garrison <cynapse at charter.net>
> 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.
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