A new primate fossil was unveiled yesterday. Hooray! But what’s up with this?
Hurum and team have been studying the fossil in secret for the past two years, going to great lengths to keep the finding under wraps until they were ready to publicly announce it.
….”There have been lots of reasons for the security and secrecy surrounding this project,” said Anthony Geffen, producer of the new documentary. “The scientists wanted to get on with the research, and then get to that day, which is today, which is incredibly exciting for all of us, when the find could come out.”
Hmmm. What reasons? Maybe this is unfair, but something about this reminds me of the fantastic lengths that scholars went to for decades to keep the Dead Sea scrolls under wraps. In that case, it seemed to be motivated by pure professional greed from a group that was determined not to let anyone else contest their interpretations or beat them to a discovery. In this case, it’s — what? A desire to wait until a massive publicity campaign was ready?
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.”
Scientific research isn’t all done in the glare of a spotlight, and peer-reviewed research takes a while to finish. Maybe there’s nothing wrong with this group’s Manhattan Project-esque secrecy. But something about it rubs me the wrong way. Am I off base here?
UPDATE: The general consensus in comments from knowledgeable observers is that this is fairly standard procedure with fossils. So regardless of how you feel about the massive publicity rollout, it sounds like there was nothing dubious about this. More here.
