Still waiting

Over the last few months I've tried to keep up to date on "Aetogate," and those of you who have been following the subject know that there has yet to be any satisfactory resolution to the problem (see here, here, here, and here to catch up, as well as the Aetogate information hub here). The Albuquerque Journal considers the story important enough to keep following, and in the wake of an inadequate inquiry by the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs, most people are now waiting on the response of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology ethics committee (the international aspect of the accusations, namely fossils from Poland, has yet to be addressed at all).

Indeed, the SVP ethics committee will likely make the key determination of whether the accusations that paleontologists working at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science claim-jumped other paleontologists in naming aetosaurs are true or not, but how seriously the New Mexico DCA takes the decision is anyone's guess. If you feel compelled to write key figures in New Mexico that will make decisions about what should ultimately be done, Mickey Rowe has put up a web page providing addresses and sample letters.

I have no idea what the SVP panel is going to conclude or what is going to happen once they do so, but this is certainly an important case. I have never worked with or met with any of the parties actually involved in the case, but questions of properly citing the work of graduate students, access to fossil collections, and ethics involving the publishing of "grey literature" (i.e. journals published by museums that may not have the same standards or peer-review as outside journals) involve all paleontologists.

Some people have questioned the involvement of Mike Taylor and others in this case, but I think paleontologists as a community should all be concerned with a case that may very well change the way work is published and museum collections are accessed. It is an ugly affair, surely, but no matter how the case turns out it is extremely important to push for an impartial, in-depth study of the claims made by both sides, and I anxiously await the findings of the SVP committee.