TPO 13 Integrated Writing Task 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 lar

The reading and the lecture are both about the possible consequences of fossils being sold to commercial markets. The author states that it causes harms from many aspects. However, the claim is challenged by the lecture. She is of the opinion that the benefits of selling fossils to commercial market definitely outweigh the disadvantages.

To begin with, the author argues that selling fossils to private collectors will deprive the public of their opportunities to have a look on the collections. It is said in the article that the traditional institutions will lose the donation because of the trade of fossils. The lecturer rebuts this by mentioning the trade actually helps public to gain greater exposure to fossils. To be more specific, those public institutions can bid the fossils as a buyer.

Secondly, the writer suggests that scientists will lose the precious access to the discovered fossils and will miss out the possibility of conducting research on them. The article mentions that scientists can be no competent once a millionaire bid a price. The lecturer, however, rebuts this by stating that every piece fossil discovered has to be passed through by a scientist as a process. As a result, the scientists will not miss out any piece of fossil discovered.

Finally, the author claims that untrained fossil collectors might probably damage the evidence while carrying out the discovery. Moreover, it uses the example of oviraptor fossils to explain how careful scientists are in comparison to commercial collectors. In contrast, the lecturer's position is that, were it not for those commercial collectors, there wouldn't be these much discoveries, and they may still remained underground.