Our very own nationalised broadcasting company continues to fall for every (not very) cheap huckster in or out of town provided they have a minimal scientific fig leaf to hide their nakedness. However, just in case, they have also dug up their own fossilised 'people's favourite', David Attenborough, to give the whole farrago a sheen of respectability as they seek to convince us that a skeleton of some rat-like creature is the 'missing link'. You probably read the headlines to the story in recent weeks as the drip feed of pre-publicity was turned on, and you probably thought this skeleton had only recently been discovered. Sucker!
"The specimen itself was not, in fact, dug up a couple of years ago. It was instead purchased, for a reported $1 million, from an obscure private collector, who had held it for at least 20 years. From the beginning, the "research program" was an exercise in entrepreneurship, with an investment to be recouped. In the end, direct participants in this circus included the History Channel, the BBC, Little Brown, Hachette Livre, and other mainstream media "content providers."
So says David Warren as he does his best to nip this piece of Darwinist propaganda in the bud.
"Dr. Jorn Hurum, the Norwegian pop paleontologist who is the brains behind this media splash, has been flashing pictures of the Mona Lisa and the Rosetta Stone alongside his Ida [The cutesy name given to this 47m-years old 'rat']. He calls her, "The Holy Grail of Paleontology!" and "The Lost Ark of Archaeology!""
I call 'her', in Python language, an 'ex-rat' but fit for suckers to swallow whole at their leisure. OK, OK, it's not a rat but it is not anything special either - except that the skeletal condition is remarkable given its age. In order to keep just this side of the respectability line, the 'entrepreneurs' (shall we call them?) arranged for a proper scientific paper to be published in an obscure internet site "PLoS One". According to Warren:
"Actually read that paper, and the hype evaporates. The authors methodically distance themselves from every sensational claim in the fine print:
"Note that Darwinius masillae, and adapoids contemporary with early tarsioids, could represent a stem group from which later anthropoid primates evolved, but we are not advocating this here, nor do we consider either Darwinius or adapoids to be anthropoids."
This is one of several remarks disowning the very assertions they have associated themselves with by participating in the extravaganza. They want to have it both ways: to pocket the stardust, while protecting their academic reputations."
Well, I sort of admire their cheek, after all, they're only pulling the same sort of strokes I used to pull when I was flogging bits of 'shrapnel' and pretending they were cars! However, I just wish that for once in a generation the BBC would get off its collective arse and actually do what they boast of doing all the time - investigative reporting. Heh! They couldn't investigate a dead rat!
Again (sighs!) I am indebted to the eagle-eyed Alan Sullivan.
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