Science suffers when meteorites and fossils become an asset class

{"text":[[{"start":null,"text":"

"}],[{"start":10.03,"text":"The writer is a science commentator"}],[{"start":12.93,"text":"If someone had told me that the lump of rock known as NWA 16788 was going under the hammer this week, I would have happily assumed the encounter was to knock it into shape."}],[{"start":27.92,"text":"Instead, the object, which looks like a misshapen paving slab smeared with rust, is an unusually large chunk of Mars that is expected to sell for at least $2mn at Sotheby’s in New York on Wednesday. The 25kg whopper, found two years ago in a remote region of the Sahara Desert, fell to Earth after being dislodged from the Red Planet by an asteroid impact. It is now being marketed as “the largest piece of Mars on Earth”."}],[{"start":60.550000000000004,"text":"The meteorite is one highlight in a series of sales targeted at the ultra-wealthy with a bent for science and tech. The series, billed as Geek Week and with payment acceptable in cryptocurrency, also features a rare fossilised skeleton of a juvenile dinosaur and an Apple-1 computer, a prototype made by founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in 1976."}],[{"start":90.33000000000001,"text":"The auctions come a year after a stegosaurus skeleton nicknamed Apex sold for a record-breaking $44.6mn. Apex is now on loan to the American Museum of Natural History in an atrium named after its purchaser, hedge fund founder Ken Griffin. But Wednesday’s sale once again raises the vexed question of whether such objects should, as a matter of principle, be available to the highest bidder or the widest audience. As fossils and other rare curios become an asset class favoured by financiers and film stars, museums that study, conserve, display and contextualise these important objects risk becoming impotent onlookers in a market gone mad."}],[{"start":143.67000000000002,"text":"For true science lovers, the items in Wednesday’s sale are more covetable than fine art and vintage wines. As well as the meteorite and fossilised dinosaur, the 122 lots include an iridescent $50,000 ammonite; the articulated foot of a T-Rex, with a lower estimate of $250,000; Neanderthal tools; and stunning natural geometric crystal formations, including amethyst, tourmaline and aquamarine."}],[{"start":182.57000000000002,"text":"The fossilised 150mn-year-old Ceratosaurus, meaning horned lizard, is the hottest draw, with a lower estimate of $4mn. It is the only known juvenile example of the species; young dinosaurs, with fragile bones, are less likely to undergo fossilisation (this happens when animals become buried in sediment, their bones dissolve and the skeleton-shaped cavity slowly turns into rock as minerals from groundwater seep in)."}],[{"start":218.10000000000002,"text":"David Polly, a palaeontologist at Indiana University and former president of the Society for Vertebrate Palaeontology, told me that such auctions undermined both scientific study and the principle that the Earth’s past belongs to everyone. “It monetises our shared heritage in the most extreme way, and is quite different from auctioning a human-created piece of art,” Polly insists."}],[{"start":248.3,"text":"Cassandra Hatton, Sotheby’s vice chair of science and natural history, defended the sale, saying most museums started out as private collections: “In our experience, most collectors are passionate about preservation and often loan or donate major specimens to institutions . . . private ownership and public access aren’t mutually exclusive.”"}],[{"start":274.40000000000003,"text":"There is evidence that the fossil rush is pushing up the cost of digs, partly through higher land lease prices in popular US hunting grounds like Montana (fossils found on private land there can be legally sold and exported). It is also attracting speculators: the recent excavation of a stegosaurus in Wyoming was reportedly funded by an IPO of 200,000 shares with a market cap of $13.75mn."}],[{"start":310.03000000000003,"text":"Neil MacGregor, former director of the British Museum, described the fossil frenzy as “the Van Gogh moment for dinosaurs”, with museums having to borrow rather than buy these auction house stars. The obvious answer, he says, is also wildly unlikely: a law change that classes fossil finds as state property, mirroring antiquities laws in some countries. But private ownership does not always prevent scholarship, MacGregor adds: rather, collectors often covet it because well-studied specimens can rise in value."}],[{"start":352.82000000000005,"text":"As for the Martian slab, the sales description notes its rarity could lead to a revision of the meteorite classification system. That sums up the problem: the same qualities that give the rock an astronomical price tag also make it valuable to science."}],[{"start":373.61000000000007,"text":"Some buyers, like Griffin, will take pride and pleasure in sharing their acquisitions — but there is no guarantee. In that way, putting extraordinary specimens under the hammer risks putting science under the cosh."}],[{"start":400.44000000000005,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftmailbox.cn/album/a_1752707345_4123.mp3"}