Taxacom: Censorship by a New Zealand museum

[John Grehan]

Museums are the one institution that is supposed to be about the promotion
of science in all its aspects. Recent action by the Museum of New Zealand
(Te Papa) appears to be breaking with this tradition. The museum presents a
blog reporting on its scientific research with the opportunity for anyone
to comment. There is no restriction placed on the scope of comment, and
presumably one would expect that within the normal practices of decorum,
any views would be posted and if seen to be incorrect, rebutted. But not
with Te Papa.

A recent blog post presented the view that the origin of an extinct bird,
the huia, could be specified from fossil calibrated molecular divergence
estimation. See
https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fblog.tepapa.govt.nz%2F2022%2F07%2F25%2Fwhen-did-the-huias-bill-evolve%2F%3Fmc_cid%3D57dfd5438e%26mc_eid%3Dd4571901eb&data=05%7C01%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7C44fbd23ae83540f48b6508da7a24fe09%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C637956596547342781%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=xrMmbdWlJ3mpXktGd%2BwCt8ivrMVGOWWQrDUPctXOxjU%3D&reserved=0

A comment I submitted stated that this could not be done since fossils
provide minimum ages only.

The submitted comment was:

“You state that "Our molecular dating analysis indicates that kōkako
diverged first, around 7 million years ago. Huia and tīeke separated from
each other around 5 million years ago.” Since these estimates are
calibrated by fossils, your estimates are all minimum ages, since fossils
can only provide minimum ages for taxa. The imposition of priors does not
change this fact, since priors are not empirically sourced (and usually
impose a low probability of being much older than the oldest fossil). A
fossil calibrated estimate would scientifically require one to state “Our
molecular dating analysis indicates that kōkako diverged first, at least 7
million years ago. Huia and tīeke separated from each other at least 5
million years ago.” There is no scientifically empirical basis for
asserting actual divergence ages of 7 or 5 million years respectively.

Te Papa has refused to post this comment. For the life of me I do not see
any basis for this suppression being justified. One would normally expect a
rebuttal if the critique was seen to be false.

I made several attempts to submit the comment without success. Another
individual submitted a more general comment about fossil age which was
accepted, so there is definitely a selective censorship taking place. It
would be interesting to see if anyone else can post a comment more directly
targeted to the problem of molecular divergence dates being minimum
estimates only, that cannot falsify earlier origins to see if that is the
subject of the censorship (presumably because the museum cannot offer a
scientific rebuttal).

I have asked the Te Papa Head of Science (Dean Peterson) and the chief
Executive (Courtney Johnston) for an explanation but none has been
forthcoming. I have now sent a complaint to the Museum Board.

Perhaps most on this list will just yawn as it is not their views that are
being suppressed. But in politics, totalitarian regimes always start with
minorities. And so too with science. Totalitarian science is not science at
all. At least with research journal censorship there are alternative high
visibility journals, but major public institutions, such as Te Papa, retain
considerable control over the public voice of science through selective
censorship and suppression, whether in public comments or displays. For Te
Papa the question is whether the institution has decided to become an
ideological front rather than a true scientific forum. Without the forum
Cicero would have had no voice.

John Grehan

-- 
https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fhepialidsoftheworld.com.au%2F&data=05%7C01%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7C44fbd23ae83540f48b6508da7a24fe09%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C637956596547342781%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=R%2FkMD2gUF7f8iYY632vKVm%2BY5d%2FeQr2BQ7PsBD248E4%3D&reserved=0 (use the 'visit archived web site'
link, then the 'Ghost Moth Research page' link.