Private collectors have been selling and buying fossils, the petrified remains of ancient organisms, ever since the eighteenth century. In recent years, however, the sale of fossils, particularly of dinosaurs and other large vertebrates, has grown into a big business. Rare and important fossils are now being sold to private ownership for millions of dollars. This is an unfortunate development for both scientists and the general public.
The public suffers because fossils that would otherwise be donated to museums where everyone can see them are sold to private collectors who do not allow the public to view their collections. Making it harder for the public to see fossils can lead to a decline in public interest in fossils, which would be a pity.
More importantly, scientists are likely to lose access to some of the most important fossils and thereby miss out on potentially crucial discoveries about extinct life forms. Wealthy fossil buyers with a desire to own the rarest and most important fossils can spend virtually limitless amounts of money to acquire them. Scientists and the museums and universities they work for often cannot compete successfully for fossils against millionaire fossil buyers.
Moreover, commercial fossil collectors often destroy valuable scientific evidence associated with the fossils they unearth. Most commercial fossil collectors are untrained or uninterestedin carrying out the careful field work and documentation that reveal the most about animal life in the past. For example, scientists have learned about the biology of nest-building dinosaurs called oviraptors by carefully observing the exact position of oviraptor fossils in the ground and the presence of other fossils in the immediate surroundings. Commercial fossil collectors typically pay no attention to how fossils lie in the ground or to the smaller fossils that may surround bigger ones.
The reading passage and the lecture both discuss the idea of allowing private collectors to buy and sell valuable fossils. On one hand, the author of the article believes that commercialization of fossil business will have negative consequences for both scientific research and the public. On the other hand, the lecturer indicates that the disadvantages for fossil commercialization is greatly exaggerated in the article. She later argues that it would actually be beneficial for individuals and also for the scientific community.
First of all, the reading claims that private collectors would limit public access to valuable fossils, which would have been donated to museums otherwise. However, the lecturer explains that commercial fossil hunting would increase the number of fossils available for purchase and it would also make them at an affordable prices for small public institutions such as libraries and schools to buy them and display them to the public.
More importantly, the article postulates that scientists would not be able to study the newly discovered fossils as universities would have no chance to successfully compete with millionaires to buy those fossils. Nevertheless, the professor in the lecture refutes this argument. She holds that in order for unearthed fossils to be valued, they have to go through scientists and experts' hands who would, therefore, perform detailed examinations and tests to identify these fossils.
Lastly, the author implies that private collectors are not trained enough to effectively collect all the scientific data from the fossils themselves and from the locations where the fossils were found. In addition, private collectors may damage fossils during excavation. In contrast, the lecturer posits that the number of fossil collecting operations by public institutions are limited and the effort of private collectors is badly needed to bring more fossils to light. As a result, it's safe to say that it's better to sacrifice a small amount of scientific data about fossils discovered by private collectors than for fossils to go simply undiscovered.
- london and german fossils 86
- Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? “When people succeed, it is entirely because of hard work. Luck has nothing to do with their success.” Use specific reasons and examples to explain your position. 71
- The sea otter is a small mammal that lives in waters along the western coast of North America from California to Alaska. When some sea otter populations off the Alaskan coast started rapidly declining a few years ago, it caused much concern because sea ot 73
- Archaeologists have recently found a fossil of a 150-million-year-old mam-mal known as Repenomomus robustus (R. robustus). Interestingly, the mammal's stomach contained the remains of a psittacosaur dinosaur. Some researchers have therefore suggested 73
- Some people believe that a college or university education should be available to all students.Others believe that higher education should be available only to good students. Discuss theseviews. Which view do you agree with? Explain why. 90
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 324, Rule ID: A_PLURAL[2]
Message: Don't use indefinite articles with plural words. Did you mean 'prex', 'price'?
Suggestion: prex; price
...t would also make them at an affordable prices for small public institutions such as l...
^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, first, however, if, lastly, may, nevertheless, so, therefore, in addition, in contrast, such as, as a result, first of all, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 9.0 10.4613686534 86% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 5.04856512141 198% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 7.30242825607 151% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 12.0772626932 108% => OK
Pronoun: 24.0 22.412803532 107% => OK
Preposition: 41.0 30.3222958057 135% => OK
Nominalization: 5.0 5.01324503311 100% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1799.0 1373.03311258 131% => OK
No of words: 326.0 270.72406181 120% => OK
Chars per words: 5.51840490798 5.08290768461 109% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.24917287072 4.04702891845 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.96648446992 2.5805825403 115% => OK
Unique words: 172.0 145.348785872 118% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.527607361963 0.540411800872 98% => OK
syllable_count: 552.6 419.366225166 132% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.55342163355 109% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 3.25607064018 123% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.23620309051 109% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 1.25165562914 80% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.51434878587 0% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 2.5761589404 155% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 13.0 13.0662251656 99% => OK
Sentence length: 25.0 21.2450331126 118% => OK
Sentence length SD: 58.3317384961 49.2860985944 118% => OK
Chars per sentence: 138.384615385 110.228320801 126% => OK
Words per sentence: 25.0769230769 21.698381199 116% => OK
Discourse Markers: 12.0769230769 7.06452816374 171% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 4.19205298013 24% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 4.33554083885 185% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 4.45695364238 112% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 0.0 4.27373068433 0% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.128416811047 0.272083759551 47% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.057029982228 0.0996497079465 57% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0517692480357 0.0662205650399 78% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0855452544775 0.162205337803 53% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0114160811986 0.0443174109184 26% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 17.1 13.3589403974 128% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 37.64 53.8541721854 70% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 5.55761589404 202% => Smog_index is high.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 14.2 11.0289183223 129% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 15.03 12.2367328918 123% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.19 8.42419426049 109% => OK
difficult_words: 89.0 63.6247240618 140% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 12.0 10.7273730684 112% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.0 10.498013245 114% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.2008830022 107% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Write the essay in 20 minutes.
Rates: 80.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 24.0 Out of 30
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.