support the amateurs

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Stefan Bengtson wrote:

>It was interesting to see that most of the comments in support of keeping
>Paleonet separate from sci.geo.paleontology came from professed amateurs. 
>I take it there is a large crowd listening in who also don't want any
>garbage on the line. I'm also sure most of us welcome input from the
>devoted amateurs - a lot of them certainly know more than I do about both
>this and that.

Yes I was surprised to realize that. I am glad to see the amateurs among us.

my subjective definition (to avoid misunderstanding):
amateurs are simply non-professionals. The expression does not judge on the
quality of what they are doing as amateurs. Some of them may be even more
skilled in their special fields than professionals.

I am an amateur astronomer and received a lot of help from professional
astrophysics for our work on an advanced amateur level. The professional's
motivation was partly scientific but was motivated more by the amateur's
roots in the broad public, the ability to distribute knowledge on the field
much broader than professionals could do. In the amateur astronomy scene we
discriminate between "serious" amateurs (semiprofessional style, reads
professional literature, attends meetings), the "fun" amateur (admires
cosmic features, asks for advice and knowledge on a popular level), and
those (as we say among us) who are making a religion out of astronomy. The
first two types of amateurs want advice by professionals, the second may be
better adviced by "serious" amateurs because often they can translate
technical terms easier to a popular language. I have never learned to deal
with the third type of amateurs on a scientific level. It was often better
to talk about religion directly.

In paleontology I have met similar types of amateurs. "Serious" amateur
paleontologists often asked for criteria of how to collect, describe, and
curate their fossils in a way that fits scientific standards. Can we help
those people via Paleonet? May I ask the amateurs: what kind of support do
you expect from professional paleontologists? What is your motivation for
amateur paleontology?

An example: My late Cretaceous ammonites go to an amateur for taxonomic
identification. He is "professional" in this specialised field and
publishes together with famous ammonitologists. His  collection work became
scientifically valuable when we demonstrated how to collect in a
stratigraphic framework (lithologic column, biozonation, marker horizons),
introduced him to basic marine facies, etc. (and next summer he will guide
the professionals in his sections, I will learn a lot).

Please, curators  do you have contact with amateurs and how does it work? I
guess curators at museums are those among us who are most frequently
exposed to amateurs because amateurs request for their taxonomic advice. 

Heinz Hilbrecht



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Heinz Hilbrecht
Geological Institute, ETH Zentrum, Sonneggstr. 5, CH-8092 Zuerich, Switzerland
Tel.: ++41-1-63 23676, Fax: ++41-1-63 21080, e-mail: Hilbrecht@erdw.ethz.ch
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