amateurs

[gator@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (christopher brochu)]

I think some of the hostility some amateurs feel from "professionals" comes
from a common confusion of "amateur" and "commercial" by the professional.
The recent debate concerning the Baucus bill in the U.S. did a lot to
foster mutual distrust between the professional and amateur communities,
not because the Baucus bill attacks non-commercial amateurs (indeed, it
benefits them) but because professionals bungled their description of it.
When they railed against the commercial sale of scientifically valuable
specimens, they often tossed serious amateurs into a polyphyletic
"nonprofessional" assemblage.

I put "professionals" in quotation marks because I don't know the line one
must cross to bear that title.  Are paleontology students considered
"professionals?"  At what point in our educational ontogeny do we get such
a distinction?


:::::::::::::::::::::
Christopher A. Brochu
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX 78712

(512) 471-6088

gator@mail.utexas.edu