Popular Culture Review Vol. 14, No. 1, February 2003 | Page 54

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Popular Culture Review

a sense, at least as they are implicated in Horner’s texts, fossils might be more
properly read as “natural” means of production, simply the raw materials that sci
entific labor then utilizes in its production of scientific value. In this manner of
reading, discursive operations to castigate “nonscientist” fossil hunters (oftentimes
shorthand for simply a paleontologist lacking an advanced degree) and prohibit
non-professional or privately-endowed collection function not only to define “sci
ence” by what it is not, but also to “hoard” the raw materials of scientific endeavor.
Although Horner castigates commercial and amateur collection because they
can destroy the “primary value” of foss