ProfessorMurder

'Ida' Fossil Hype Went Too Far | LiveScience

The debacle started to unfold when the finding, cloaked in secrecy while a
media engine was being primed, leaked out in The Wall Street Journal, and
then in London's Daily Mail. Then The New York Times wrote about the media
circus that was to ensue. All this was published before anyone but the
research team (and its tightly controlled media team) knew the details of the finding.

"The P.R. campaign on this fossil is I think more of a story than the fossil
itself," anthropologist Matt Cartmill of Duke University told Moskowitz. "It's a
very beautiful fossil, but I didn't see anything in this paper that told me
anything decisive that was new."

Ida's unveiling was highly scripted (with some "Barnum and Bailey aspects,"
said paleontologist Richard Kay of Duke University).


Ida the fossil will reveal her secrets slowly | Adam Rutherford | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

"WORLD RENOWNED SCIENTISTS REVEAL A REVOLUTIONARY SCIENTIFIC FIND
THAT WILL CHANGE EVERYTHING", boomed the press release (their caps).
Wow. What could it be? Cold fusion? A cure for AIDS? Life in Uranus? The
press conference promised to "unveil a major historic scientific find" that
will "address a long-standing scientific puzzle."

I briefly met Darwinius (also known as Ida) in late 2008, shown a photo by
the television production company who were lucky enough to be filming when
the fossil was acquired. It was a special moment. The build-up was shrouded
in secrecy. I had signed a legal agreement not to talk to anyone about it. I
was taken into a room and the image dramatically revealed. It was like being
shown an Area 51 alien.


Birmingham Atheism Examiner: Darwinius masillae: journalists and creationists embarrass themselves yet again

Darwinius masillae is not a missing link. In fact, there is no such thing as a
missing link. This image is mainly a product of media hype that propagates
the idea that there is a single bridge between modern and primitive species.

With the hype has come a spate of creationists once again crying foul. While
many of them buy straight into the hype generated over the find, others
seem determined to go farther than that, attempting to caricaturize or simply
evangelize the whole discussion.

you will find a range of opinions swinging from an obvious insistence of
misconstruing the facts to outright denial to the assertion that this is yet
another sign of the “end times”. These nonsensical proclamations and
refutations only serve to exacerbate the damage done by lazy scientific
journalism pervading the mainstream media, causing one to conclude that
either these creationist writers really are as credulous and unimaginative as
they appear, or they are cleverly disingenuous charlatans who rely on said
journalistic laziness to help keep those who support them as ignorant of the
facts and as forthright with their wallets as possible.

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ProfessorMurder

Does Darwinius Exist? | The Loom | Discover Magazine



Darwinius has achieved the ultimate triumph of pop-culture consciousness,
having become for the moment the background image on the main Google
search page. But some of the commenters in my post yesterday on the head-
slapping hype around this fossil pointed out something I thought deserving of
its own post: Darwinius may not actually exist.

By this I mean that the name Darwinius may not be valid officially published. I
first became aware of this from Nature editor Henry Gee’s twitterings. The
problem has to do with the fact that the journal where Darwinius was
pubished, PLOS One, is only online.

While these rules may seem a bit esoteric to most people, taxonomists take
them as seriously as a heart attack. I’ll be curious to see how this story
develops. How strange would it be for the most famous fossil of the day to
be rendered nameles

Update #3: I just got a new comment from Peter Binfield, the managing editor of PLOS One

PLoS is aware of the problem with the ICZN not recognizing species names
that are announced in online only journals. The issue specifically relates to us
being online-only (which more and more journals will become in the future)

Update #4: Ugh! Over at Why Evolution Is True, Greg Mayer rightly points
out that Darwinius has been published in paper form already: in the
newspapers that ran stories before the PLOS One paper was published. As
early as May 10, the Daily Mail had a piece. I’m wondering if this has ever
happened before, and have newspapers ended up being cited as the original
publication for other species names?

Update #5: The ICZN Executive Secretary has given me the official word. Read here for the details.

As I posted yesterday, some commenters on the Loom pointed out that,
amidst all the hullaballoo over the unveiling of this primate fossil (oh, don’t
get me started), it looked as if the scientists who wrote the paper failed to
follow the rules for naming a new species. The people who make the rules
(the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature) require paper
copies of a scientific paper, not just a digital one, as was the case of
Darwinius.

Today, the executive secretary of the ICZN used the Loom to confirm that,
yes, Darwinius was not yet Darwinius.

__________________
"No contaban con mi astucia!"

ProfessorMurder

Turns out there's a huge International Black Market for fossils and atrifacts.

The History Channel's "The Link" confirms.
The shows trasncript has yet to be posted.

...
The fossil was found in two parts by amateur fossil hunters in 1983. It
eventually made its way through fossil dealers to the research team.

She was cleaned and set in polyester resin - and incredibly, was hung on a mystery German collector's wall for 20 years.

Sky News sources say the owner had no idea of the unique fossil's
significance and simply admired it like a cherished Van Gogh or Picasso painting.

But in 2006, Ida came into the hands of private dealer Thomas Perner, who
presented her to Prof Hurum at the annual Hamburg Fossil and Mineral Fair in
Germany - a centre for the murky world of fossil-trading.

He says he knew she should be saved for science
rather than end up hidden from the world in a wealthy private collector's vault.

But the dealer's asking price was more than $1 million (£660,000) - ten times
the amount even the rarest of fossils fetch on the black market.

Eventually, after six months of negotiations, he managed to raise the cash in
Norway and brought Ida to Oslo.

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ProfessorMurder

I think someone is jealous?

You, Americano, couldn't figure out the story behind the story.


Go back to school, and learn how to cut someone down properly.

Agian, you're two steps back and facing the wrong direction.

__________________
"No contaban con mi astucia!"

ProfessorMurder

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Roach

Tin foil hats for everyone.



throw in some other sensational topics...Hitler (every conspiracy goes back to hitler.)
Atlantis
Planet X
Microwave brain control
MalcomX
The Matarese Circle
nwo.htm
The Professional Paranoid's Conspiracy Page: WWW Conspiracy search engine, CIA confesses JFK, CIA's METC Bomb used in Oklahoma City, with bomb factory photographs.

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לזיין את הקופים

Psilocychosis

This is really cool, but you are taking an unprecedented stance that has no factual backing.

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Life gave me lemons, I didn't make no lemonade, threw the fuckin' lemons back and busted out the Cabernet

Psilocychosis

Are the multi posts really necessary?

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Life gave me lemons, I didn't make no lemonade, threw the fuckin' lemons back and busted out the Cabernet

ProfessorMurder

I thought we were past the "crazy" talk.

Edison did try to suppress Teslas' alternating current. (it's like History Book 101 Shit!)

Hitler was helped by Rich German Elites
and Helena Blavatzky's Secret Doctrine was Hitlers' 'Bible'.

There is so much secret history your teachers aren't telling.



Read a book for christs' sakes!

__________________
"No contaban con mi astucia!"

ProfessorMurder

Before we get off topic.


I would advise to watch the History Channel's "The Link".


The Professor explains (very plainly) how he had to "save" Ida from Black Market Private Collectors,
before risking losing the fossil, again.

That's why he had to pay 10x normal black market prices.

"He didn't know what he had" Yeah Right!

__________________
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kamikazi89

i'm gonna have to ask you the same question

*newsflash* scientists find evidence the earth is really old..relative to what we may have believed in the past...well, it's all out of the closet now, don't try to make it bigger then it really is

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ProfessorMurder

Nice question, let me see if I can answer it.

Maybe the funny premise is throwing you off.

I'm sorry, it's my Jonathan Swift complex.

There is a Billion Dollar Underground Market of Historical Artifacts.

The News-Bulletin: Lost history
Looting

Looting is the intentional, illegal removal of artifacts that have value.
Many times, these artifacts are then sold on the Black Market. Looting is on
the increase, primarily because of the increased market value of artifacts. It
is evident in many sites along the Rio Grande, and should not to be confused
with legal collection.

"According to Interpol, trafficking in cultural resources is
the third leading crime in dollars worldwide, following guns and
drugs," said John Fryar, Special Agent for Bureau of Indian Affairs.

The Global Antiquities Black Market

The illicit market in antiquities is global and huge but Interpol, the
international police organization, says its true size is obscured by the privacy
in which such selling takes place. Interpol adds that observers commonly rank
illicit antquities as the third-largest type of black-market trafficking behind
drugs and weapons.

Stanford University archaeologist Michael Shanks ventures to put a dollar
sign on the trade. "Estimates vary," he says. "It's very difficult to get a
handle on exactly how big the trade is, but I've heard estimates of around
about four and a half to five billion dollars a year."

Artifacts became big business in the 1700's with the founding of national
museums such as the British Museum in London and the Louvre in Paris. As
colonial armies swept across the world, antiquities were unearthed, removed
and sent back to capital cities for triumphant display.

With the rise of the middle class in the 19th and early 20th centuries private
individuals joined the nobility in a quest for ancient treasures. The
competition among persons and museums sent prices soaring, which
prompted even more opportunists to go on the hunt. Observers say the surge
in personal wealth in recent decades has fueled even more illicit artifact
trade. Mesopotamian civilization specialist Francis Deblauwe says certain
regions are targeted. "Afghanistan is a bad one, of course. Looting in China,
too. Cambodia, parts of Vietnam - it's pretty widespread."

Artifact looting and war have historically gone hand-in-hand. The most
recent example is Iraq,

The looted Iraqi museum

where the state museum in Baghdad was pillaged in April 2003 following the
toppling of Saddam Hussein's government. Some of the thefts may have been
an inside job, according to Neil Brodie at Cambridge University's Illicit
Antiquities Research Center. "There were indications here," he says, "that
these were knowledgeable as only the most valuable objects were stolen,
and copies, replicas and so forth were left untouched."

Later it turned out museum employees had removed a great quantity of the
artifacts for safe keeping and then returned them. Diligent police work in
other countries recovered still more. U.S. authorities distributed pictures and
descriptions of missing objects at all ports of entry to the country. But
archaeologist Francis Deblauwe says some 85-hundred are still missing and
may wind up in the hands of unscrupulous private collectors. In response, the
U.S. Congress enacted a law imposing stiff penalties for unlawfully importing
Iraqi artifacts, though this could have the effect of shifting sales to other
countries without such prohibitions.

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kamikazi89

those numbers are old, no way is the market that strong at this point in time

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katie west is the best

ProfessorMurder

Yeah, it's probably down 1 or 2 billion, give or take a billion.

But there is something there.

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kamikazi89

that's a significant drop

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katie west is the best

Grieves

that doesn't negate the fact that there is a huge black market for stolen antiquities...

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kamikazi89

values are depressed though,& not just in the antiquities market

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katie west is the best

Grieves

So. Your arguing semantics at this point...

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kamikazi89

i wasn't arguing at all

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katie west is the best