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2.9 私人收藏化石的优缺
Almost in every period of China’s history, private collection has long been a popular interest for Chinese. Our ancestors enjoyed collecting a lot. Portraits painted by famous painters, ancient containers which were perfectly made, all this kind of artworks are regarded as things worth collecting. As till today, there is a considerable number of people have developed the habit of housing fossils. They think fossils are created by natural for thousands of years, and fossils are valuable both for private collection and for scientific research. In another word, fossils are much more meaningful than those famous portraits or ancient containers for those collectors. As even a coin has two sides, this trend cannot simply be treated as a personal behavior. For fossils, the collectors’ doings may cause good and harm to either themselves or the society.
To begin with, collecting fossils is just like one kind of investment that can help people enrich themselves. We know that fossils are usually antiques, they are the witness of some certain historical period. As those collections become older, their value on the antique market enhances. Thus, if the owner thinks the price is reasonable, s/he can decide whether to sell the collection for the current profit. Also, the collector can choose not to sell the fossil, s/he is also able to wait for a higher bid. However, in the antique market, there are also things collectors should be concerned. News like announcing that a certain kind of fossils is related to the royalty would significantly raise the fossils’ value and lead to an increasing demand for them. On the contrary, news such as reporting that a high rate of certain fossils in the antique market is fake would certainly drop their value as no one tends to buy them. Hence, collecting fossils is like an adventure in life, to gain or to lose, it all depend on the collectors themselves.
On the other hand, the whole society may lose the way back to the ancient times by private collection. Generally, fossil research is the main way that helps researchers tracing the history. The fossil of a wolf-like creature’s skull shows its ear area has the characteristic only seen in aquatic mammals, thus helps professors to draw the conclusion that this creature is actually the ancestor of modern whales. Various types of fossils are needed in archaeology studies, as researchers are engaged in solving such a big puzzle. If most of the fossils are collected by individuals in private, or are selling in the antique market for money, they would never have a chance to be exploited the real value in archaeology and other related aspects. Obviously, it does harm to the whole world, preventing people to understand the world and themselves further by studying fossils.
To sum up, we can draw the conclusion that private collection on fossils has both advantages and disadvantages. On one hand it enriches person’s life by acting as one kind of investment. On the other hand it blocks scientists’ research on both the nature and we human beings. When it comes to whether we should do the collection, we must take both the good and harm aspects into account. |
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