Page 206 - The Origin of Birds and Flight

204 The Origin of Birds and Flight

Kansas, commented, “I don’t trust any of these specimens until I see
X-rays.” 164
Larry Martin describes the Chinese attitude regarding these forger-
ies:
The farmers do not believe this is wrong, they look at it as restoring
an art object to make it more marketable. The whole commercial
market for fossils has gotten riddled with fakery. 165
The well-known Beijing paleontologist Xu Xing sets out the facts
determining that the Archaeoraptor is a fabrication:
“Lots of specimens have been smuggled out for commercial purposes,”
Xu said. For science, this is a disaster. When pieces are stolen and
smuggled out, sometimes blocks of fossils are matched together
mistakenly. That can be a big mistake, and it misleads the public. 166