[meteorite-list] Seeking Knowledge and Dealing with Meteorwrong Owners wa...

From: MexicoDoug_at_aol.com <MexicoDoug_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed May 24 10:01:11 2006
Message-ID: <454.15229ea.31a4fef5_at_aol.com>

Pete, Elton, Norm, Gary and friends,

The idea that one more meteorite wrong is going to over-tax a system that is
ready to break in a second and do an enormous disservice to the interest of
science is ridiculous. Considering that 1000's of rocks are scanned and tiny
amounts are actually graduated as meteorites, it will take a lab all of two
seconds to toss the sample out if it as as most of us believe. It is absurd to
think that this is squandaring scientific resources as if it is a big deal.
What has the world degenerated to nowadays if someone can't get a rock looked at
by a scientist. My head isn't in that osterich hole.

Gary has gone to check this rock out. He has invested time and money and
enthusiasm in it because he is curious and learning like all of us. Gary has
also spoken to the owner and the owner did not exhibit snake-oil behavior. He
gave Gary a big sample. Gary believes there is a good chance the the owner
truly believes his divine account. Up to there we have honest curiosity and
enthusiasm. Gary has been a listmember for at least 6 months and I think he has
demonstrated to be as pleasantly eccentric and contributing as others here. Why
would anyone want to tell him he is wasting his time, as if you knew how to
spend his time better - maybe guidance, ok, but Gary will decide when he is
done. I think his quest is a good one and I congratulate him for his project
which he has approached honestly. No one seemed too concerned that Gary
investigated, but suddenly the Prohibition Amendment is being flashed around. Maybe
he'll just toss it because of comments belittling his quest made on this list.
I got the idea that a church of believers is also somehow depending on this,
though maybe I got it backwards - this is the real importance imo. Here we
have 5, 10, 50 churchgoing-folks thinking maybe something great will happen for
their church. I think the least the meteorite community could do is help
here, and stop trying to monopolize scientists' time for their own
classifications. The problem isn't that there are too many meteorwrongs being submitted, it
is that there are too many meteorites being submitted. Think about the
positive social impact and how science has a good chance to help here - with all due
respect to my senior list members.
Saludos, Doug (pardon to Gary for over using his name)
Received on Tue 23 May 2006 08:12:37 PM PDT