Kambiz Kamrani of Anthropology, normally a rather staid blogger, has posted something titled Science Suffers From The Idiots At Scientific American. It's in reference to this widely circulated editorial, Fossils for All: Science Suffers by Hoarding. I can't really summarize it, and I think the title certainly does invite you to read the whole post at Anthropology.net
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There is an ongoing Journal Club on the PLoS ONE article A Three-Stage Colonization Model for the Peopling of the Americas.
That's what Kambiz Kamrani is saying. Significance:
Video is taking over science communication. And why not? Now that paper is outdated, the limitations of that ancient technology should not apply to scientific publishing any more.
20 years ago Jeffrey Schwartz published The Red Ape, making the case that humanity's closest extant relatives within the animal kingdom were orangutans,
Sounds like any political feud about anything anywhere. I certainly know which side of the feud Kamrini is on. Fifteen years still seems like a long time to restrict access to a fossil. It reminds me of the Dead Sea scrolls, which were kept secret for decades.
John Emerson said it. I skimmed Kamrini: so there's a partisan engagement going, and some of it's kind of underhanded, at least according to Kamrini's side. Cry me a river. Bottom line: is there some arcane technical reason for taking fifteen years to "prepare" a fossil? I really doubt it, and if there isn't, why should I care about the partisan drama.
In other words, if one party is quite right about the whole issue, then a daub of mud on their hem is not interesting.