Taxacom: Some more bad science for the Callaeidae (Aves)

[John Grehan]

Here's another one in the grand tradition of censorship and suppression in
New Zealand Science (not to mention some really bad science). The article,
Lubbe, P., Rawlence, N.J., Kardailsky, O., Robertson, B.C., Day, R., Knapp,
M. & Dussex, N. 2022. Mitogenomes resolve the phylogeography and divergence
times within the endemic New Zealand Callaeidae (Aves: Passerida).
Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society XX, 1–13, continues this
tradition by definitively leaving out any reference to the contributions of
panbiogeography that are relevant to the article's evolutionary claims.

The introduction begins with the statement that “New Zealand (Aotearoa) has
long played host to biogeographical debates, such as the relative
contributions of vicariance and dispersal (Waters & Craw, 2006; Wallis &
Jorge, 2018), the influence of geological history (Craw et al., 2016) and
the impacts of Pleistocene glaciations on the evolution, speciation
patterns and distribution of biota (Rawlence et al., 2019). New Zealand
(Aotearoa) has long played host to biogeographical debates, such as the
relative contributions of vicariance and dispersal (Waters & Craw, 2006;
Wallis & Jorge, 2018), the influence of geological history (Craw et al.,
2016) and the impacts of Pleistocene glaciations on the evolution,
speciation patterns and distribution of biota (Rawlence et al., as ‘Moa’s
Ark’, in reference to lineages that were purported to be Gondwanan relicts,
or as the ‘fly paper of the Pacific’ owing to the abundance of geologically
recent lineages originating from long-distance dispersal (Wallis & Trewick,
2009).”

This text misrepresents the state of NZ biogeography by leaving out
reference to the massive literature on the panbiogeography of New Zealand.
Panbiogeography is a key contributor to nature of vicariance and dispersal,
particularly given that it discussed these processes extensively and as
applied to the origins of the NZ biota. And there is a massive amount of
empirical tectonic evidence supporting vicariance of the NZ biota, not to
mention biota globally. The authors make reference to the work of Jonathan
Waters who has publicly declared censorship and suppression as a
scientifically appropriate means of dealing with opposing research
programs. When approached about censorship in the article, one of the
authors responded, “We are not aware of any censorship of panbiogeographic
ideas.”. Jeepers, and I thought it was bad enough dealing with TrumpWorld
here in the US.

The authors assert that “Molecular dating depends on fossil calibration
points” but this is simply untrue as it is well known that various
molecular theorists have used tectonic calibrations for example.

The paper also carries on that other grand tradition of misrepresenting
fossil calibrated molecular divergence ages as actual or maximal even
though this is empirically not possible since fossils provide minimum ages
only, and carrying on the pretense that the molecular assumption has never
been seriously questioned. STheir contention that “We recover an Oligocene
split of the Callaeidae from its closest relatives, here estimated as a
mean age of 27.1 Mya,” is not really correct. This 'mean age' (and the
upper limits of its range) are just minimum values. Nothing more. Their
divergence ages are therefore neutral with respect to their claim that
their bird group “arrived” since the molecular age does not preclude
earlier origins or derivation from a widespread ancestor encompassing 'New
Zealand' and elsewhere (meaning that their bird group 'arrived' in NZ when
it also arrived elsewhere where its relatives now occur).

Nothing to be done about any of this. Its just a note for the record of the
scientific-industrial complex pushing ahead under the weight of its own
inertia. At least no subscriber to Taxacom can say that they are not aware
of censorship of panbiogeography.

Article at
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John Grehan

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