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Fudging the truth

Jun 08, 2009 Letters

Dear Editor,

I have visited the website of the Times Online newspapers as Pastor Singh recommends and, not surprisingly, I find what is reported there to be slightly different from what he is telling us.

He claims “The Carnegie Museum is a leading critic of Ida” (GC June 5th). This is totally not true. The curator of the museum, Chris Beard, speaking on his own personal behalf, doubted the fossil’s link to human ancestry but his biggest problem was that it was bought.

Beard fears that amateur explorers will now ask scientists for money before handing over any fossil specimens they find. Beard singles out people in certain parts of the world: “The big problem is that we have to go to the Third World and convince our colleagues there, that these fossils have only scientific worth and not commercial value,” he said.

Really, these white guys make a killing from these discoveries which, in the past they have not shared with “third world” people. Admission fees are paid to museums where the fossils are housed; professors get millions in grant money; they write books from which they personally pocket large sums and they broadcast TV specials, which generate even more millions of dollars.

But Pastor Singh wants

us to listen to Chris Beard who preaches that these things have no commercial value. Of course, as curator of the Carnegie Museum, Beard’s salary, which I am sure is way over US$100,000 a year, tells us there is no money involved in fossils. Yeah, right.

By the way, I have also visited the official website the Carnegie Museum; I could not find any reference to that institution’s criticism of the fossil as Pastor Singh claims.

It is no plot, no secret that “Ida” was bought for $750,000. As someone already explained in this newspaper there is a thriving fossil market. Dr. Jørn Hurum who bought Ida says, “The American Museum of Natural History paid around $6.4 million for the first ever T. rex specimen. If fossils are legal and they are out there, why shouldn’t museums acquire them in the same way that galleries acquire art?”

Why? Pastor Singh’s hero Chris Beard has the answer – The big guys in developed countries don’t want to pay “third world” folks for their discoveries that’s why.

Now, this same Chris Beard wants to delegitimize the scientific value of the Ida fossil. It is easy to figure why he’s motivated to do so.

Lutchman Gossai

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