[meteorite-list] Re: who does what for what cause?

From: MarkF <mafer_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri Jun 17 19:28:07 2005
Message-ID: <000c01c57394$377dea00$b144fc04_at_MAF>

Hi List and the gently feuding
I've been listening to the pros and cons of collecting and what some people
feel is the "right" thing to do with something that might be scientificly
important.

The first things that come to mind are the years long court battles waged
between a certain curator hiding behind the Florida State prosecutor and Mel
Fisher.
The curator had to have the jewels and gold of the ships that Mel spent
years upon years looking for but never went looking for himself. Is this
right? Is this the proper thing to have done, go after another man's dream
and life endevor just to feather you hat and put your place of work on a
map? Was the treasure Mel found scientificly important? Not really. Was it
history? Very much so.
Is what Florida, egged on by some shallow desk jockey, in the right? I doubt
it.

Then in the 90's, the trials repete themselves with a flair.
The Larson's are attacked by a fairly well known university, under the
skirts of the FBI and Federal prosecutors, and charges of theft of materials
from government lands and all the hoopla that goes on with it.
Well, to make a long story short. Larson wasn't convicted of theft, nor of
cheating a Native American, nor of anything else that would have legally
kept Sue, the T. Rex from his possesion. But, because the FBI could somehow
prove that some years before Sue was even found, he had left the US with
over $10k that he didn't declare, they could keep the fossil and "auction"
it off to the highest bidder. Larson got 18 months.
Was that justice? Was that the "right" thing to do?
I think people have to understand that museums are not always the pristine
center of learning and study they are made out to be.

Just my lowly observations

Mark F in Somerset
Received on Fri 17 Jun 2005 07:28:05 PM PDT