Re: Bambiraptor (comment on Brochu's comments)

["Brent Jones" <bjones@mail.cosi.org>]

>>> "Jeffrey Martz" <jeffmartz@earthlink.net> 11/22/00 12:04AM >>>
Brent Jones wrote...
> Looking this over, I have to say that we are being dragged down into a
debate from which there may be >no solution. Compromise is neccessary, and
one thing compromise means is that no one will be >satisfied with the final
answer. However, if we are to allow peace and love and harmony to rule once
>again on this list, we may have to start looking for middle ground.

Then Jeffrey Martz replied:
>    That depends on the particular situation and the nature of the
compromise.  If a group of people wanted to, say, remove and sell off the
Mesa Verde cliff dwellings, I would not consider it all right to compromise
and just let them take half just in order to smooth things over.  As has
been touched on in this discussion, the issue of private collectors vs.
academia is a complex one in which a lot of very different situations arise.
However, important decisions shouldn't be weighed on how badly your
opponents want something.  A compromise isn't always acceptable.<

I think I was trying to say that, too. A simple compromise may be to agree to 
disagree. And, I do agree that the issue of private collectors vs academia is a 
complex one. I just wish it were not viewed as "private collectors vs 
academia"; that makes it sound less likely to be able to find any compromise!

Being an amateur collector, I am more than willing to share my fossils with 
anyone - even donate them to a museum (I am presently trying to do that for my 
museum, so my museum can have a permanent collection of Cincinnatian fossils to 
show off Ohio's riches). I also refuse to purchase actual fossils EXCEPT from a 
museum store (all of my "real" fossils are collected right now, but I've had my 
eye on a couple of fossils in the store of the Cincinnati Museum of Natural 
History; all the others are replicas) - it's not that I don't believe in 
supporting commercial collectors; I just feel that a museum has to have had a 
hand in evaluating any fossil I purchase, so that I will know that said fossil 
does not have a large amount of educational/ paleontological significance.

How does that sound for "middle ground"?

Brent : )