RE: paleonet Burgess Shale Fossil Theft

["Judith Harris" <harrisj@xxxxxxx>]

If you think of fossils as only the "fundament of a career", you have missed many points re nature, evolution, the sacred, etc.

 

Judith Harris

-----Original Message-----
From: paleonet-owner@nhm.ac.uk [mailto:paleonet-owner@nhm.ac.uk]On Behalf Of Pristis@aol.com
Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2001 5:34 PM
To: paleonet@nhm.ac.uk
Subject: Re: paleonet Burgess Shale Fossil Theft

In a message dated 9/4/01 1:37:40 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
smolka@uni-muenster.de writes:

On Tue, 4 Sep 2001 Pristis@aol.com wrote:

> Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 14:13:47 EDT
> From: Pristis@aol.com
> Reply-To: paleonet@nhm.ac.uk
> To: paleonet@nhm.ac.uk
> Subject: Re: paleonet Burgess Shale Fossil Theft
>
> This is such silly-business.  It constantly amazes me how self-important
> paleontologists can be!  This is just a rock that is missing from a
> mountain-top.  How many of these worm impressions does it take to make
this a
> "tragedy"?  Get real, guys, get some perspective!
>
> Think of this loss of a worm impression, if it is really a theft, as an
> analogy for the "war on drugs" in our society.  You publicize the stuff,
you

Dear Harry,

a diamond, even if stolen, is just carbon.

A book, even if torn into pieces, is just paper
(to save the information scanning is an appropriate method so the
book itsself is not needed any more).

A large animal, even if tortured, is for about 70% "just
water" (but we have for good reasons laws to prohibit this).

I do know that people feeling like "classical fossil collectors" sometimes
appear unusual - no doubt about it but:

If, what is very rare, documents of our own history (our heritage so to
say), including your own disappear (like Burges shale specs.) it is
not so nice (so: I am NOT a fossil collector but as well as we have
some rare paintings hanging in Louvre, Eremitage or Museum of
Modern Art, we have also some fossils that are very special).

To give you an easy comparison: The Burgess shale fauna compares
to the first buildings around 1776 (if there are any,my knowledge on
that is limited) in the US.

You may of course have any opinion on anything.

I hope however I could give an analogy regarding the Burgess shale fauna.

Best regards, Peter

Thank you for an attempt at a reasoned response, Peter.  I think you have
missed the point.  The loss of a worm impression is not equivalent to
torturing an animal, nor is it equivalent to tearing down an historical
structure (perhaps it is equivalent to the loss of one paving stone).  It is
simply not a tragedy in anyone's view UNLESS you have a distorted view of the
world -- the paradigm of the professional paleontologist.  

These fossils are merely bones and stones, but they are the fundament of a
professional paleontologist's career.  No wonder that the paleontologist
views these things as sacred, the loss of which is intolerable!  No wonder
that paleontologists in general want the rest of us to share this view of the
world.  But, we don't feel nearly as strongly about the loss of a fossil on a
mountaintop in the Canadian Rockies as you might.  

Labelling the loss of a worm impression as a "tragedy" could be a genuine, if
distorted, view of the sanctity of fossils.   It also could be a calculated
attempt through hyperbole to shape public opinion.  I don't know what the
author had in mind, maybe both of the above.

      --------Harry Pristis