Publishing on human origins

[Peter Werner]

John Grehan wrote:

> Here is the first of what may be many setbacks in attempting to bring
> the orangutan issue to a wider audience. The journal Natural History
> turned down an article because they found it very problematic that the
> DNA sequencing data for the relationships between hominids and apes is
> still open to question. Without a genetic argument to support a
> human-orangutan connection they would not publish something that openly
> challenged what they consider to be settled science.
>
> So you can see, perhaps, the hegemony that genetic sequencing has over
> human evolution and its consequence for stultifying discussion of
> non-DNA sequence alternatives. I have no problem with any particular
> science dominating the field, but when this adversely influences
> options
> for alternatives to be published it's a troubling situation. I doubt
> this is a healthy condition for science, but others may of course feel
> otherwise (and please note that the editors did not find any fault with
> the morphology, just the idea that morphology might call DNA sequence
> data into question).

My first question would be how effectively did the paper you are
talking about deal with the whole question of why the morphological
evidence and the molecular evidence are at odds, and what may be wrong
with the particular molecular sequences or phylogenetic techniques that
is leading to aberrant conclusions. If the papers argument is,
effectively, "The molecular data don't agree with my interpretation of
the morphological data, therefore the molecular data are wrong," then I
can't blame Natural History for not taking the article. The author may
not have molecular data to support his or her position, but the author
must still provide some explanation as to how others have found
molecular data that seemingly falsify the author's conclusions.

I'm far from an expert on primate evolution or vertebrate morphology in
general, but my experience with taxonomy has been that often people who
disparage molecular data because "it contradicts the morphological
evidence" are simply too attached to one particular evolutionary
hypothesis to consider that there may be other valid interpretations of
which morphological traits are more primitive, which are more derived,
and which are homoplasies. Molecular phylogenies may very well conflict
with various morphological hypotheses, but one of the measures of
whether the molecular hypothesis is any good is whether it allows for
novel morphological hypotheses that are plausible alternatives to the
older morphological hypotheses. Eventually, some kind of congruence
should result.

Just my two cents,

Peter Werner
Graduate Student, Mycology
San Francisco State University