Darwinius: Science, Showbiz, and Conflicts of Interest

The story of Darwinius masilae continues... In our previous chapter, we noted that the scientists who described this fossil claimed "no competing interests exist," ignoring the fact that the fossil was the center of a spectacular media circus that included a heavily financed TV documentary. I contacted Peter Binfield of PLOS One, where the paper was published, and asked for a comment. He said he was contacting the authors and would get back to me. He has. The paper is going to be formally corrected, and in the interim the following statement has been posted to the comment section on the paper's website: "The authors wish to declare, for the avoidance of any misunderstanding concerning competing interests, that a production company (Atlantic Productions), several television channels (History Channel, BBC1, ZDF, NRK) and a book publisher (Little Brown and co) were involved in discussions regarding this paper in advance of publication. ...