Changes

:: I agree with your edit, and am suggesting that we go further and either toss the entry or downgrade it further in an appropriate way.  It just does not rise to the level of, say, David slaying Goliath.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 20:37, 13 August 2009 (EDT)

:: I agree with your edit, and am suggesting that we go further and either toss the entry or downgrade it further in an appropriate way.  It just does not rise to the level of, say, David slaying Goliath.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 20:37, 13 August 2009 (EDT)

::: OK, so I see there's been some discussion of Roger Mason. The point is that he didn't just stumble over some strange markings in the rock: he knew they were fossils and he knew the rocks were pre-Cambridge. His teenage open-mindedness led him to see what older, more closed-minded professors did not see. He had the confidence to go to a professor and tell him what he'd discovered - the professor didn't believe him till he'd seen it with his own eyes. A whole new era of biological life? A big discovery by anyone's standards. I've part-reverted the deletion, i.e. I've made it clear why it was such a big deal. [[User:BenjyB|BenjyB]] 18:30, 3 February 2011 (EST)

::: OK, so I see there's been some discussion of Roger Mason. The point is that he didn't just stumble over some strange markings in the rock: he knew they were fossils and he knew the rocks were pre-Cambrian. His teenage open-mindedness led him to see what older, more closed-minded professors did not see. He had the confidence to go to a professor and tell him what he'd discovered - the professor didn't believe him till he'd seen it with his own eyes. A whole new era of biological life? A big discovery by anyone's standards. I've part-reverted the deletion, i.e. I've made it clear why it was such a big deal. [[User:BenjyB|BenjyB]] 18:30, 3 February 2011 (EST)

Mason's achievement is that he discovered the first fossil to come from rocks that were undoubtedly of a Pre-Cambrian era. Before that, the consensus of professional scientists was that there were no complex lifeforms before the Cambrian. Mason knew the rocks were Pre-Cambrian and he knew that what he found was a fossil. The fossil is named for the place it was found, Charnwood Forest, and for him: ''Charnia masoni''. Very very few people have revolutionised a whole area of science as teenages - Mason is one of them. You can read about it in New Scientist, issue of April 14, 2007.

Mason's achievement is that he discovered the first fossil to come from rocks that were undoubtedly of a Pre-Cambrian era. Before that, the consensus of professional scientists was that there were no complex lifeforms before the Cambrian. Mason knew the rocks were Pre-Cambrian and he knew that what he found was a fossil. The fossil is named for the place it was found, Charnwood Forest, and for him: ''Charnia masoni''. Very very few people have revolutionised a whole area of science as teenages - Mason is one of them. You can read about it in New Scientist, issue of April 14, 2007.