Darwinius masellae’s real name: Darwinius moolae

Evan H. writes:

“A world of hype,” you wrote. That’s exactly what this story is—hype. What you’re seeing is the perversion of science in the name of money. Here’s the real story of what happened, from what I’ve been able to piece together from various sites.

The fossil now known as “Ida,” and placed in a new genus and species called Darwinius masellae, was discovered twenty five years ago, and it is remarkable primarily because of its age and completeness. For most of those twenty five years it sat in a private collector’s drawer. Then in 2006 a scientist named Jorn H. Hurum became aware of the fossil’s existence and immediately recognized its media potential. From the New York Times, referring to the announcements that are inundating us—

But the event, which will coincide with the publishing of a peer-reviewed article about the find, is the first stop in a coordinated, branded media event, orchestrated by the scientists and the History Channel, including a film detailing the secretive two-year study of the fossil, a book release, an exclusive arrangement with ABC News and an elaborate Web site. “Any pop band is doing the same thing,” said Jorn H. Hurum, a scientist at the University of Oslo who acquired the fossil and assembled the team of scientists that studied it. “Any athlete is doing the same thing. We have to start thinking the same way in science.”

So now science needs to start doing the things that pop bands and athletes do to promote themselves. Actually, they need to do this because they paid the private collector $1 million for the fossil, and what to recoup their investment handsomely.

From the Guardian:

But to do that he would have to take the biggest gamble of his career. On the strength of the potential he saw in those photos he would have to find the $1m asking price for the specimen or risk it going underground again. “They were very high stakes,” said his close colleague at the University of Oslo and long-time friend, Prof David Bruton. “He took a terrible risk.” [LA replies: So he entered this as an investor, an entrepreneur, not as a scientist.]

Today, after two years of painstaking, secret scientific work that required an internationally renowned team to invent techniques to study the fossil, the results of Hurum’s wager were made public.

Among the people involved:

Several groups had scrambled to attach their names to the find, from Michael Bloomberg, New York’s mayor, who was photographed beside the fossil with his arm round a schoolgirl, to the Norwegian minister of higher education, who pledged $350,000 of government money to the project. The publishers Little Brown gave a speech, having brought out a book on the discovery in deepest secrecy and the record time of just four months.

So at the very least, the History Channel, ABC News, the Norwegian government, and Little Brown have a financial interest in this fossil being a “big deal.” So what do real scientists have to say? From Discover Magazine:

Both Fleagle and Beard [2 prominent primatologists] were not impressed with this argument. Fleagle observed that, ironically, most of the evidence presented in the paper is old news. Except for the ankle and a few other traits, most of the traits offered to link adapiforms to anthropoids “have been known for decades,” said Fleagle. It’s nice to have those traits all in one primate fossil, but they don’t advance the debate. Fleagle is intrigued by the anthropoid-like ankle of the fossil, but he also notes that it’s “roadkill,” flattened down to a 2-millimeter pancake. He wonders whether their interpretation of the ankle will hold up to scrutiny.

Beard has similar things to say via email.

I’ve been deluged today by journalists regarding this. It is a marketing campaign for the ages. The fossil is nice because it is so complete, but it is a rather vanilla-flavored adaptiform that does not differ appreciably from other members of that well-known group of Eocene primates…

So to summarize, it looks like a scientist purchased an expensive fossil, and then organized a worldwide media blitz designed to promote the importance of it. Two prominent primatologists are not impressed with the fossil or the paper that is being published, but the promoters behind the media campaign stand to make a lot of money off of the “lay Darwinist” public’s desire for a justification of their beliefs.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 20, 2009 12:16 AM | Send