Re: Dino/Birds? was Mesozoic snow? and fund for Antonio

[Aidan Karley <aidan_karley@yahoo.co.uk>]

In article <20050616102013.31652.qmail@web33508.mail.mud.yahoo.com>, Jaime A. 
Headden wrote:
> Incomplete specimens have been often
> "completed" by addition of other specimens of animal (not always the same 
> kind)
> into a make-shift slab,
>
       Hmmm, what's that warm glow ? ... Oh, it's the cheeks of the National 
Geographic man in the corner. 'Scuse me, I need to open the window, it's 
getting 
hot in here.
       
> Science, however, is not driving this market, private collectors are, 
> otherwise
> the discoverers would be salvaging all the available material and not screwing
> with it.
>
       One wonders what factors could be ... adjusted ... pressured ... 
socially 
engineered, to improve the situation? The behaviour of some of Cope and Marsh's 
collectors in the field was not always exemplary, but not quite so blindly 
destructive either. Similarly, though by modern standards, a professional 
collector such as Mary Anning was by no means perfect, nor was she so 
rapacious. 
It would take someone much more familiar with the real-world pressures on the 
locals to advise on what could be done to enhance the benefit to them of the 
scientific community getting better access to quality context for the fossils 
that do come out.
       
-- 
 Aidan Karley,
 Aberdeen, Scotland,
 Location: 57°10' N,  02°09'  W (sub-tropical Aberdeen), 0.021233
 Written at Thu, 16 Jun 2005 14:53 +0100



        
        
                
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