为什么化石交易对科学有益【考研英语经济学人精选精读】 外刊每日精选精读

编者按：由于我国不准化石交易。在贵州我发现很多农民将化石当普通石头随意破坏，扔在漫山遍野到处都是。甚至拿来修路、修屋基。我也跟当地政府有关领导聊过。为什么不好好保护这些化石？他们说，贵州化石太多了，没有钱去研究，保护！为什么不开放化石买卖呢？让民间资本参与到化石保护行列中来。为我们子孙后代、全人类积德！                                 

Why trade in fossils is good for science

The great auction houses of America and Europe often sell masterpieces by long-dead artists to a grey-haired crowd. They also serve the booming demand for actual fossils. In 2020 Christie’s sold “Stan”—one of the most complete Tyrannosaurus rex specimens ever discovered—for a record-breaking $31.8m. In April “Trinity”, a composite of three T. rex specimens, fetched $6.1m at the Koller auction house in Zurich—one of six dino-lots to have breached the $6m threshold since “Stan” was sold. At the end of July Sotheby’s is due to auction off another nearly complete specimen.

美国和欧洲的大型拍卖行经常向年迈的人群出售已故艺术家的杰作。它们也满足了对实际化石的蓬勃需求。2020年，佳士得以创纪录的3180万美元的价格售出了“斯坦”——有史以来发现的最完整的暴龙王（Tyrannosaurus rex）标本之一。今年4月，在苏黎世的科勒拍卖行，一个由三个暴龙王标本组合而成的“三一”标本以610万美元的价格成交，这是自“斯坦”被售出以来第六个突破600万美元门槛的恐龙标本。今年7月底，苏富比将拍卖另一件几乎完整的标本。

The buyers are typically rich collectors (Leonardo DiCaprio, a Hollywood actor, has an interest in dinosaur skulls). That alarms many palaeontologists, who fear that museums and other scientific institutions are being priced out of the market by individuals who will lock their collections away. Even when scientists are granted access to specimens held privately, many journals have in recent years refused in protest to publish the resulting research.

买家通常是富有的收藏家（好莱坞演员莱昂纳多·迪卡普里奥对恐龙头骨很感兴趣）。这引起了许多古生物学家的担忧，他们担心博物馆和其他科学机构因个人将他们的收藏品锁起来而被市场定价淘汰。即使科学家获准访问私人收藏的标本，许多期刊在最近几年出于抗议而拒绝发表相关研究。

The antagonism of these scientists towards commerce is misplaced. A thriving market for fossils should lead to more discoveries that—if the trade is appropriately regulated—will benefit science and the public.

这些科学家对商业的敌视是错误的。一个繁荣的化石市场应该能够带来更多的发现，如果交易得到适当监管，将使科学和公众受益。

Palaeontology has always leaned heavily on prospectors and private collectors. Mary Anning, one of the field’s pioneers, attained celebrity status in Victorian England after she discovered the first fossil specimens of ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs (marine contemporaries of the dinosaurs) erodingout of the fragile coastal cliffs of Dorset in south-west England, known as the “Jurassic coast”. The tongue-twister “She sells sea shells on the sea shore” is supposedly a reference to Anning’s prolific collection and sale of marine fossils.

古生物学一直在很大程度上依赖于探矿者和私人收藏家。玛丽·安宁（Mary Anning）是这一领域的先驱之一，在维多利亚时代的英格兰，她在英国西南部多塞特郡脆弱的海岸悬崖上发现了首批鱼龙和古代蛇颈龙（与恐龙同时代的海洋生物）化石标本，因此成为名人。流传至今的绕口令“她在海滩上卖贝壳”据说是指安宁丰富的海洋化石收藏和出售。

Today most fossils sold at auction come from America. Once discovered there, they belong to the landowner and can be legally traded. In many other countries, fossils automatically become the property of the state. The advantage of encouraging the “dinosaur cowboys” of Montana, Wyoming and the Dakotas—which share a big geological deposit—to get digging is that once fossils are exposed, they are as vulnerable to wind, rain and tide as they once were to being munched by a theropod. As Dorset’s cliffs collapse, for example, new fossils constantly appear, but can be lost as erosioncontinues. Scientists often lack the resources to find, collect and preserve every fossil with scientific value before it is destroyed by nature.

如今，大多数在拍卖会上出售的化石来自美国。一旦在美国发现化石，它们就属于土地所有者，可以合法交易。在许多其他国家，化石自动成为国家财产。鼓励蒙大拿州、怀俄明州和达科他州等共享一个巨大地质储藏的“恐龙牛仔”进行挖掘的好处在于，一旦化石暴露出来，它们就像曾经被兽脚类恐龙吃掉一样容易受到风雨和潮汐的侵蚀。例如，正如多塞特郡的悬崖岩崩塌一样，新的化石不断出现，但在侵蚀持续进行时可能会遗失。科学家通常没有足够的资源在它被自然界摧毁之前找到、收集和保护每一个具有科学价值的化石。

The private sector plugs the gap by responding to price signals. prospecting first boomed after “Sue”, another famous T. rex specimen, was sold to Chicago’s Field Museum for $8.3m in 1997. The recent spate of sales is prompting another rush for bones today. It is not always true that the resulting hoards end up out of sight. “Stan” was bought by the Abu Dhabi Department of Culture and Tourism and is due to go on display in 2025. From Tampa to Copenhagen, many privately owned fossils are on show at museums or soon will be, much as the world’s best art galleries often hang privately owned pieces on loan.

私营部门通过对价格信号做出反应来填补这一空白。在1997年，另一件著名的暴龙王标本“休”被以830万美元的价格卖给了芝加哥菲尔德博物馆之后，勘探首次蓬勃发展。最近的一系列销售引发了今天对化石的又一轮争夺。并不总是意味着由此产生的大批化石会消失得无影无踪。例如，“斯坦”被阿布扎比文化和旅游部购买，计划于2025年展出。从坦帕到哥本哈根，许多私人拥有的化石在博物馆展出或即将展出，就像世界上最好的艺术画廊常常会展示私人拥有的艺术品一样。

Fears of crowding out scientists and the public are not entirely without merit. Sometimes specimens do vanish after being bought anonymously. But nationalising the ownership of fossils does not make the desire to buy and sell them disappear. Instead, it pushes the trade underground. The black market is a bigger threat to science than legitimate trade. Smugglers have much lower standards than auction houses, frequently damaging or destroying specimens, and stolen fossils are even less likely to end up in museums.

担心科学家和公众被排挤出去并非毫无道理。有时候标本在匿名购买后确实会消失。但将化石的所有权国有化并不能消除购买和出售的愿望，它只会将交易推向地下市场。黑市对科学的威胁比合法交易要大得多。走私者的标准比拍卖行低得多，他们经常会损坏或破坏标本，而被盗化石更不可能最终进入博物馆。

There are ways to preserve the value to the public of privately owned fossils. Governments could write rules insisting that the discovery of fossilsand who owns them is catalogued. They could require specimens to be made available for study, or ensure that museums can make casts. And—although auction houses already demand assurances regarding the provenance of fossils—they could set in stone minimum standards for excavationand handling, to allay fears that prospecting might become a Wild West. It is better to regulate the market and let it thrive than to force it towards extinction.

有办法保护私人拥有的化石对公众的价值。政府可以制定规定，要求记录化石的发现和所有者信息。他们可以要求标本供研究使用，或确保博物馆能够制作复制品。尽管拍卖行已经要求对化石的来源进行保证，但他们可以确立发掘和处理的最低标准，以消除对勘探可能变得像西部荒野一样无序的担忧。更好的方式是对市场进行监管并让其繁荣发展，而不是迫使其走向灭绝。