（发表于2022年9月30日；作者为美国布朗大学历史学副教授卢卡斯·里佩尔，治资本主义史/博物馆史）

Dinosaurs are in the news these days, but it’s not just for groundbreaking discoveries.
More and more paleontologists are ringing alarm bells about high-profile auctions in which dinosaur fossils sell for outrageous sums. The most recent example involves a 77 million-year-old Gorgosaurus skeleton that Sotheby’s sold for over US$6 million in August 2022.

这些天恐龙出现在了新闻中，但这可不只是因为突破性的发现。
越来越多的古生物学家对各种明目张胆以高到离谱的价格拍卖恐龙化石的行为敲响了警钟。最近的例子包括苏富比拍卖行在2022年8月以超过600万美元的价格售出了一具有7700万年历史的蛇发女怪龙（译注：某种大型暴龙，如上图）骨架。

But that’s not even close to the most anyone ever paid for a dinosaur. In May 2022, Christie’s sold a Deinonychus skeleton for $12.4 million. And a couple of months before that, Abu Dhabi’s Department of Culture and Tourism paid an eye-popping $31.8 million for Stan, a remarkably complete T. rex from South Dakota’s Hell Creek Formation that’s going to be the centerpiece of the Persian Gulf city’s new natural history museum.

但这距离人们为恐龙付出过的最高价还差得很远。2022年5月，佳士得拍卖行以1240万美元的价格售出了一具恐爪龙骨架。而在此之前的两个月，阿布扎比文化旅游部为“斯坦”付出了令人瞠目的3180万美元，斯坦是一只极为完整的霸王龙，来自南达科他州地狱溪地层，将成为这个波斯湾城市自然历史博物馆新馆的镇馆之宝。

Some scientists are so dismayed they are speaking out. University of Edinburgh paleontologist Steve Brusatte told the Daily Mail that auction houses turn valuable specimens into “little more than toys for the rich.” Thomas Carr from Carthage College in Wisconsin was even more forthright, saying, “Greed for money is what drives these auctions.” He also complained that wealthy elites – including actors Nicholas Cage and Leonardo DiCaprio – are competing to acquire the best specimens in a game of juvenile one-upmanship, describing them as “thieves of time.”

有些科学家倍感恐慌，开始站出来发声了。爱丁堡大学古生物学家史蒂夫·布鲁萨特告诉《每日邮报》，拍卖行将珍贵的标本变成了“区区富人的玩具”。来自威斯康星州迦太基学院（即楷识大学）的托马斯·卡尔更是直言不讳，他说，“这些拍卖会的驱动力是对金钱的贪婪。” 他还抱怨说，在这种力争压人一头的幼稚游戏中，有钱的精英们，包括演员尼古拉斯·凯奇和莱昂纳多·迪卡普里奥，正在争相收购最好的标本，他们还自称“时间的小偷”。

Most commenters trace the booming market for dinosaurs back to Sue, the largest and most complete T. rex ever found. After the FBI confiscated it from the same group of fossil hunters who found Stan, the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago acquired it – with financial backing from Disney and McDonald’s – for over $8 million in 1997.

大部分评论家会将恐龙市场的蓬勃发展追溯到“苏”，苏是迄今为止发现的最大、最完整的霸王龙。在联邦调查局从发现斯坦的那群化石猎人手中没收了它之后，芝加哥的菲尔德自然历史博物馆在迪士尼和麦当劳的资助下，在 1997年以超过800万美元的价格收购了它。

But as I document in my recent book, “Assembling the Dinosaur,” the commercial specimen trade is as old as the science of paleontology itself. And its history shows the debate over whether dinosaurs ought to be bought and sold involves much deeper questions about the long-standing but hotly contested relationship between science and capitalism.

但正如我最近的新书《组装恐龙》中所记载的，商业标本交易和古生物学这门学科一样古老。其历史也表明，关于是否应该买卖恐龙的争论，涉及到了更深层次问题，即科学和资本主义之间存在已久但激烈争竞的关系。


Two sides of the debate

这场辩论的双方

Paleontologists have good reason to oppose the commercial sale of valuable fossils. Science is fundamentally a community enterprise, and if specimens aren’t available for public examination, paleontologists have no way to assess whether new findings are true. What if a particularly outlandish theory is based on a fraudulent specimen?

古生物学家有充分的理由反对珍贵化石的商业销售。从根本上看，科学是一项社区事业，如果标本得不到公众的检视，古生物学家就没有办法评估这些新发现是否准确无误。万一某个特别荒诞的理论是基于某个欺诈性质的标本呢？
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


This happens more often than you’d think. In the late 1990s a private collector purchased what appeared to be a feathered dinosaur at the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show. National Geographic subsequently reported on it to great fanfare, claiming it was a “missing lix” between dinosaurs and modern birds. When scientists grew suspicious, they found that the so-called “Archaeoraptor” fossil combined pieces of several distinct specimens to make a chimerical creature that never existed.

这种情况的发生频率比你想象的高。九十年代末，一位私人收藏家在图森宝石和矿物展上购买了一具看似是带羽毛恐龙的东西。随后，《国家地理杂志》对此做了大肆报道，还宣称它是恐龙和现代鸟类之间的一个“缺失环节”。当科学家们开始怀疑它时，他们发现这个所谓的“辽宁古盗鸟”化石是几个各自不同的标本拼接而成的，为的是炮制出一个从未存在过的幻想生物。

But commercial fossil hunters make a compelling point, too. Most fossils first come to light through the natural process of erosion. Eventually, however, erosion also destroys the specimen itself – and there simply aren’t enough scientists to find every fossil before it is lost. Hence, the argument goes, commercial collectors should be celebrated for saving specimens by digging them up.

但商业化石猎人也提出了一种令人信服的观点。大部分化石首先是通过自然的侵蚀过程现于世间的。然而，最终侵蚀也毁掉了标本本身，而且，能在每一块化石消失之前找到它们的科学家，人数根本就不够。因此，这种主张认为，商业收藏家通过挖出标本来拯救标本的行为应该受到赞扬。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


Wealthy philanthropists distance themselves

富有的慈善家开始与之保持距离

Both sides of the argument make a compelling point. But as the fiasco around “Archaeoraptor” reveals, it’s worth asking whether financial incentives erode trust.

争论的双方都提出了令人信服的观点。但是，正如“辽宁古盗鸟”尴尬收场所揭示的那样，有必要问一问，经济刺激是否会侵蚀信任。

Dinosaurs first came to the attention of geologists during the 19th century. In fact, these gigantic lizards did not acquire their name until the comparative anatomist Richard Owen invented the biological category “Dinosauria” in 1842.
At that time, scientists did not treat dinosaurs any differently from other valuables that could be dug out of the ground, such as gold, silver and coal. Museums purchased most of their fossils from commercial collectors, often using funds donated by wealthy industrialists like Andrew Carnegie, who even had a dinosaur named after him: Diplodocus carnegii.

恐龙第一次引发地质学家的关注是在十九世纪。事实上，一直到比较解剖学家理查德·欧文在1842年创造了“恐龙总目”这一生物类别后，这些巨型蜥蜴才有了自己的名字。
当时的科学家在对待恐龙时，和其他从地下挖出来的贵重物品（如金、银和煤）没有任何不同。博物馆拥有的大部分化石，都是从商业收藏家那里收购的，经常会使用安德鲁·卡内基之类富有实业家捐献的资金，甚至还有一种恐龙是以他的名字命名的：Diplodocus carnegii（以卡内基梁龙）。

That started to change at the very end of the 19th century, when there was a concerted effort to decommodify dinosaur bones, and museums began to distance themselves from the commercial specimen trade.
One impetus came from museums’ wealthy benefactors, who sought to demarcate their charitable activities from the unsavory world of commerce. Philanthropists like Carnegie and J.P. Morgan gave money to cultural institutions because they wanted to signal their refined taste, their appreciation for learning and their republican virtues – not to enter into a business transaction.

这种情况在十九世纪末开始发生变化，当时出现了通力合作，目的就是让恐龙骨骼去商品化，博物馆也开始和商业标本贸易保持距离。
其中一股推动力来自博物馆那些很有钱的捐助人，他们力图将自己的慈善活动和不光彩的商业世界划清界限。卡内基和J.P.摩根之类的慈善家资助文化机构，是因为他们想宣告自己的高雅品味、对学习的赞赏，也是出于他们共和党人的美德，而不是为了涉入商业交易。

Moreover, the first Gilded Age resembled the present in that it, too, saw a sharp increase in economic inequality. This led to widespread class conflict, which could be remarkably violent and bloody. Afraid that incendiary labor leaders would bring the industrial economy to its knees, wealthy elites began using public displays of conspicuous generosity to demonstrate that American capitalism could yield public goods in addition to profits.

此外，第一个镀金时代和现在的相似之处就在于，当时也出现了经济不平等的急剧恶化。这引发了广泛的阶级斗争，而且这类斗争可能会非常血腥暴力。由于担心煽动成性的劳工领袖会让工业经济屈服，富有的精英们开始通过非常惹眼的方式公开展示慷慨，以此证明美国资本主义除了逐利之外还是有能力出产公共产品的。
（译注：第一个镀金时代始于十九世纪七十年代，直到十九世纪末）

For all these reasons, it was essential for their philanthropic activities to be seen as selfless acts of genuine altruism, utterly divorced from the cutthroat competition of the marketplace.

出于所有这些原因，他们的慈善活动在世人眼中必须是从真正的利他主义出发的无私行为，须完全脱离市场中的残酷竞争。

Scientists take control

科学家获得了控制权

At the same time, paleontologists embraced the language of “pure science” to claim they produced knowledge for its own sake – not financial gain.
By arguing that their work was free from the corrupting influence of money, scientists made themselves more trustworthy.

与此同时，古生物学家们信奉的是“纯科学”的语言，声称他们是为了生产知识而生产知识，而不是为了经济收益。
科学家们通过主张自己的工作不受金钱腐蚀，让自己变得更值得信赖了。

Ironically, scientists found they could attract more funds by claiming to be completely uninterested in money, fashioning themselves into ideal recipients for the philanthropic largesse of wealthy elites. But that further necessitated a clear demarcation between the the culture of capitalism and the practice of science, which entailed a reluctance to acquire specimens via purchase.

具有讽刺意味的是，科学家们发现，他们可以通过声称对金钱毫无兴趣来吸引更多的资金，也就是把自己塑造成那些富有精英的大笔慈善捐助的理想接受者。但这就进一步要求在资本主义文化和科学实践之间划出明确的界线，这就使得不愿意通过收购来获得标本成为必须。



（图解：十九世纪末二十世纪初，博物馆（威尔士博物馆）开始资助恐龙骨骼的挖掘工作）

As scientists began shunning the commercial specimen trade, museums set about using the generous donations of wealthy philanthropists to mount increasingly ambitious expeditions that allowed scientists to collect fossils themselves.

随着科学家们开始规避商业化的标本交易，博物馆开始利用富有慈善家的慷慨捐赠开展越来越多雄心勃勃的探险活动，科学家们也便可以靠自己去采集化石了。

Dinosaurs in the New Gilded Age

新镀金时代的恐龙

But their ability to control the private market for dinosaur bones did not last forever. With the United States in the middle of what some call a New Gilded Age, it has come roaring back.

但是，他们控制恐龙骨骼私人市场的能力不可能永远保持下去。随着美国走进某些人口中的新镀金时代，这个市场又轰轰烈烈地回来了。

Today, the most spectacular dinosaur fossils often hail from the Jehol formation of northeastern China. And more often than not, they are purchased from local farmers who supplement their incomes by hunting for fossils on the side.
As a result, the question of whether commercial incentives erode trust is back with a vengeance. Li Chun, a professor at Beijing’s prestigious Institute for Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, estimates that more than 80% of all marine reptiles on display in Chinese museums have been deceptively altered to some degree, often to increase their value.

今天，最壮观的恐龙化石通常来自中国东北部的热河地层（热河组）。它们多半都是从当地农民那里收购来的，这些人通过搜寻化石来贴补自己的收入。
结果就是，商业动机是否会侵蚀信任的问题又卷土重来了。据北京久负盛名的古脊椎动物和古人类研究所教授李纯（音）估计，在中国博物馆中展出的所有海生爬行动物中，80%以上都经过了某种程度的欺骗性改动，通常是为了提高其价值。

The age-old worry about whether the profit motive threatens to undermine the values of science is real. But it is hardly unique to paleontology.

这种由来已久的关于“获利动机是否是破坏科学价值的威胁”的担忧是真实存在的。但这并不是古生物学独有的问题。

The spectacular implosion of Theranos, a tech startup that secured more than $700 million in venture capital based on false promises of having developed a better way to conduct blood tests, is just just a particularly high-profile example of commercial deceit paired with scientific misconduct. So much scientific research is now being paid for by people who have a commercial stake in the knowledge produced – and you can see the ramifications in everything from Exxon’s decision to hide its early research on climate change to Moderna’s recent move to begin enforcing its patent on the mRNA technology behind the most effective COVID-19 vaccines.

Theranos是一家科技创业公司，通过“开发出更好的验血方法”的虚假承诺，获得了超过7亿美元的风险投资，而其惊人内爆，只是商业欺诈与学术不端行为相勾结的一个特别引人注目的例子。如今，有太多科研活动都是由那些在其产生的知识中牟取商业利益的人买单的，从埃克森美孚公司决定隐瞒其针对气候变化的早期研究，到莫德纳公司最近的动向（开始对其最有效的新冠疫苗背后的mRNA技术强制执行专利），种种后果如你所见。
（译注：Theranos现已解散，创始人斯坦福大学肄业生伊丽莎白·霍姆斯或将面临20年监禁）

Is it any wonder that so many people have lost trust in science?

所以这么多人失去了对科学的信任，也就不奇怪了吧？