Re: amateurs

[gbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (gregory brown)]

> 
> 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

I agree that the lack of understanding (or is it lack of concensus?) 
about how we define "amateur", "professional", and "commercial" may be
adding to our problems in this regard, and certainly we as 
professional paleontologists may have been very lax (complacent?) in 
our relationship with the amateur community.  And it is certainly true
that some individuals have been guilty of lumping all amateurs in with
the commercial operators as an "out-group".  However, the lesson we 
have learned from the debate over the Baucus Bill and the resulting 
alienation many amateurs are feeling is not so much that we have 
failed, but that certain of the commercial interests have succeeded.  
Succeeded in what?  In a massive campaign of mis-information.

At the University of Nebraska, we are very pro-amateur and have  
very good relationships with many individuals and clubs.  
We have worked with several amateur/hobbyist groups in the state 
lately, and we were actually shocked to find that they were almost 
unanimously opposed to the Baucus Bill.  What did they know about 
the Bill?  Nothing.  None of them had ever read the bill.  They did 
read the literature prepared by commercial interests, all of which 
was either total fabrication or gross misrepresentation.  This was 
what was published in their newsletters and this was what became the 
foundation for their _very_ strong opinions.

As a group, we have perhaps been guilty of taking amateurs for 
granted, and not being more "pro-active".  However, to attribute 
much of the polarization and alienation of the amateur community
to the "bungled description of the Baucus Bill by 
professionals" is not accurate.  Perhaps "sitting in the wings, 
naively believing that 'good' must surely triumph over 'evil'"
might be a more accurate description.

The solution to our image problems with amateurs will not be through
better definitions or improved wording of Bills.  It will be through 
better communication with, and education of, the amateur community, 
and recognizing that 'good' only triumphs if good people are willing 
to work at it.

Greg Brown, Chief Preparator
Division of Vertebrate Paleontology
University of Nebraska State Museum