@Ionus,
Quote:..I look at fossils very approvingly.
I can't say I do Io. They have that basic flaw that one might say almost anything about them, given the range of choice, and they cannot answer back. They are ideal in that respect for anti-Iders who, as I had Gerard Manley Hopkins explain earlier, expect, indeed are astonished, that their state of mind is not shared by everyone. Fake fossils are even more suitable for the purpose.
I can see no educational purpose to them outside of providing ammunition for those who feel a vocation to make a career in fossil science. They seem to provide stimulation to the necrophiliac tendency and to those who prefer looking backwards to looking forwards. They have a sinister aspect not unlike Hamlet contemplating Yorick's skull.