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I think Mr Lurio missed the point
when he wrote:
<<If it wasn't for amateurs and commercial
interests, there wouldn't have BEEN
any paleontology. Cope and Marsh were commercial collectors and everything they dug up were commercially collected specimens. >> Padian , in is article, admits that since the first
ages of paleontology, amateurs' findings have been really important for the
progress of paleontology, BUT also says that those time were very different from
these.
For this reason a comparison between the role
of amateur research then and now, can't be done.
<<If you have fossils that are worthy of
study, don't boycott, STUDY!>>
would you study something that will likely lead you
to to something partially(or totally) misleading?
I'm not a professional, but even i understand the
importance of trying to consider as many informations and data as possible
regarding something you want to study and describe.
Paleoenviromental and paleoecological informations
(only to mention two) are important and the impossibility of
achieving a good knowledge about these aspects is a problem;however this
can be considered a minor aspect if compared to the much more problematic one
concerning genuinity of the remains and the possibility that, a
primary home-made preparation (or even a good one, but directed to the
final presentation of an individual more "interesting"[see "Archaeoraptor", but
also other not chimaeric animals, rebuilt more completely than how they were
found )], has damaged (first case)or altered(both first and second one) the
remains.
Considerations about what paleontology would have
been (and what it wouldn't have been ) without the help of amateurs
are interesting(and important), but you have to consider what it will become if
nobody takes care of the same things Mr Padian( and others previously) pointed
out.
Would it be better for a scientific work to
be done in twenty years (with many fossils kept stored for years, but then
accurately studied and described) or in much less time with an inaccurate
preparation, study and descrpition of the same??
the latter question is directed to Mr Simon, who
wrote on the same subject, pointing out that many (really many) fossils are
being kept stored in museums without being studied or even
prepared;
I think that the contribution of amateurs
can't be viewed under only one perspective; it is true that many important
remains now awaiting for prep.&description have been found by amateurs and
it's also true that without them there would be really few (well,
perhaps not few, but..) things to work on, but the point here is that there are
many ways an amateur can contribute to the cause of scientific knowledge
advancement and these ways have to be carefully considered when in front of a
specimen collected by amateurs ( those who collect those fossils sometimes can't
even be called amateurs i think....chinese farmers need money, they don't care
about paleontological knoledge);
I think Padian's article was correct in being
balanced while considering many of the causes of this increasing movement
of fossils and while taking into consideration some of the things scientist
should do to avoid such a movement(or at least try not to help it).
I know my english is not very good and some of
my thoughts would sound a bit noisy,and i hope nobody got offended ( Mr Lurio in
particular);
bye
Filippo Calzolari
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