Friday 16 June 2023
Tampering with the record?
Fossil Friday: The Supposed Oldest Cheetah Was Yet Another Fraud
In 2008 two scientists from the Shanghai Science Museum and the Zoological Museum in Copenhagen described a new mammalian species, Acinonyx kurteni, from a supposedly 2.2-2.5 million year old skull, as the oldest known fossil cheetah (Christiansen & Mazák 2009). This discovery allegedly also proved an Old World origin for these feline carnivores (Carroll 2008), contrary to earlier beliefs that placed the origin in the New World together with the American cougar.
Even before the publication, the Chinese scientists Deng Tao and Qiu Zhanxiang had revealed the skull to be a crude forgery (Stone 2010, Wang 2013) and said that just from photos of the specimen one could easily recognize that parts of the skull had been concocted from plaster. The journal PNAS, which happens to be one of the top ten high-impact journals in science, was informed in advance but dismissed the protest and published the paper anyway. The responsible editor was nobody less than famous Darwinist Francisco Ayala (who died this year). Only one year after the original describers had still defended their work in the prestigious journal Science (Mazák & Christiansen 2011), the lead author finally retracted the paper in 2012 with the lukewarm explanation that it was based on “a composite specimen from the late Miocene laterite and not from the early Pleistocene loess” (Mazák 2012, Anonymous 2012).
Among the Worst
This example certainly ranks among the worst kinds of fraudulent fossils, as it received widespread global media attention just like the “Piltdown bird,” Archaeoraptor. Contrary to the claims of some science popularizers and the Darwinist thought police, forged fossils from countries like China and Russia do indeed represent a significant problem (Stone 2010, Wang 2013) and have repeatedly led to junk science published in peer-reviewed journals. This case also demonstrates that such frauds can be driven by the desire to present and support evolutionary scenarios, which may also suppress any doubts among reviewers and editors as the shocking example of Ayala shows.
References
Anonymous 2012. Author retracts PNAS paper about alleged Pliocene cheetah fossil that critics said was a fake. Retraction Watch August 20, 2012. https://retractionwatch.com/2012/08/20/author-retracts-pnas-about-alleged-pliocine-cheetah-fossil-that-had-been-questioned/
Carroll R 2008. Ancient Cheetah Fossil Points to Old World Roots? National Geographic News December 29, 2008. https://web.archive.org/web/20090221125349/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/12/081229-cheetah-skull.html
Christiansen P & Mazák JH 2009. A primitive Late Pliocene cheetah, and evolution of the cheetah lineage. PNAS 106(2), 512–515. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0810435106
Mazák JH 2012. Retraction for Christiansen and Mazák, A primitive Late Pliocene cheetah, and evolution of the cheetah lineage. PNAS 109(37), 15072. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1211510109
Mazák JH & Christiansen P 2011. A defense of the primitive cheetah skull. Science 331(6021), 1136–1137. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.331.6021.1136-bStone R 2010. Altering the Past: China’s Faked Fossils Problem. Science 330(6012), 1740–1741. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.330.6012.1740
Wang X 2013. Mortgaging the future of chinese paleontology. PNAS 110(9), 3201. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1301429110
Commonsense gets a jab in?
England’s National Health Service Bans Most Puberty-Blocking
Following up on an earlier advisory recommending against providing puberty blockers to adolescents who feel they are a different sex, the National Health Service in England has now banned their administration except in the context of a formally approved clinical trial. Moreover, social gender-affirmation will not be the automatic approach taken for children presenting with “gender incongruence.” From the NHS England advisory :
The clinical management approach should be open to exploring all developmentally and psychosocially appropriate options for children and young people who are experiencing gender incongruence. The clinical approach should be mindful that this may be a transient phase, particularly for pre-pubertal children, and that there will be a range of pathways to support these children and young people and a range of outcomes . . . .
A significant proportion of children and young people who are concerned about, or distressed by, issues of gender incongruence experience co-existing mental health, neuro-developmental and/or personal, family or social complexities in their lives. The relationship between these presentations and gender incongruence may not be readily apparent and will often require careful exploration.
Treating each patient as an individual instead of a category to be checked off, one approach fits all: what a concept!
Non-scientific and Ideologically Driven
Please note that this guidance is the precise opposite of immediate gender-affirmation in all cases regardless of the particular circumstances of the patient — a non-scientific, ideologically driven policy pushed by woke medical associations, and the laws and pending legislative proposals in our most progressive states (such as California’s A.B. 957).
The new approach will ban puberty-blocking except in the structured circumstance of a clinical trial. From another NHS England advisory:
The new approach will ban puberty-blocking except in the structured circumstance of a clinical trial. From another NHS England advisory:
We have previously made clear, including the draft interim service specification we consulted on, the intention that the NHS will only commission puberty suppressing hormones as part of clinical research. This approach follows advice from Dr Hilary Cass’ Independent Review highlighting the significant uncertainties surrounding the use of hormone treatments.
We are now going out to targeted stakeholder testing on an interim clinical commissioning policy proposing that, outside of a research setting, puberty suppressing hormones should not be routinely commissioned for children and adolescents who have gender incongruence/dysphoria.
Let us not forget that Norway, France, Sweden, and Finland — not exactly part of the Bible Belt — are also pursuing this more rational approach to gender incongruence. The approach, it is worth noting, is far more similar to the laws of Florida, Tennessee, and some other states than to those of California, Washington, and the rest of the gender-affirmation cartel.
The science is not settled. Gender-affirming care is not necessarily in the best interests of children presenting with gender incongruence. The time is long past for the American media and policymakers to recognize this fact, so that a truly science-based discourse can be launched about how best to care for these children.
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