Re: paleonet Burgess Shale Fossil Theft

[Dinogeorge@xxxxxxx]

In a message dated 9/4/01 11:49:08 PM EST, Pristis@aol.com writes:

<< This is an important issue, and I wish you had addressed it 
constructively.  Instead, you have reinforced my contentions about the 
special paradigm that many paleontologists use to view their place in the 
universe.  Thank you (I  guess)! >>

Look--in the long run, we're all dead, and the entire Earth is merely a 
useless and unimportant dust mote adrift in a vast void. But it's >our< dust 
mote, and we each individually decide what is significant here. 
Paleontologists are at least as special as everybody else, and their wishes 
and passions deserve at least as much respect as everybody else's. That's 
respect, not condescension. It is wrong to steal fossils of any kind from 
land that has been set aside for paleontological work, and that is that. 
There's no further debate required. And it is not a minor incident to steal a 
fossil for someone who is willing to shell out (no pun intended) big bucks 
for it.