There’s a particular kind of blog post I enjoy–the kind that sounds just like one of those enjoyable rants you hear from a friend in a bar. These rants are loud, funny, impassioned, and surprisingly coherent given the site of said rants. So it is with a remarkable feeling of deja vu (deja lu?) that I read a blog post from Chris Norris, who manages the vertebrate paleontology collection at the Peabody Museum at Yale. Yesterday I had a drink with Chris, and he began to inveigh against the evils of stolen fossils, explaining how any scientific contact with them whatsoever is like the fruit of the poison tree.
Chris has just started launched a blog with the excellent name Prerogative of Harlots, and so, after his rant was over, I said it seemed like ideal blog fodder. And today I see it is. I can even taste the Murphy’s Stout.
Originally published February 4, 2009. Copyright 2009 Carl Zimmer.