[Taxacom] Darwinius media hype

[Kenneth Kinman]

John Grehan wrote:
    Are strepsirhine's really a dead-end group?
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My response:
     The phrase I used was "if Darwinius is a deadend strepsirhine" (not
that strepsirhines are a dead-end group).  My point is that living
strepsirhines retain a grooming claw on the foot, so the loss of a
grooming claw in Darwinius would make it a poor candidate for an early
form that gave rise to the living strepsirhine taxa.  And the lack of a
toothcomb would make it an even more likely "deadend" as a strepsirhine.
Sadly, I suspect that is what Darwinius could turn out to be.  It's a
wonderfully complete and valuable fossil, but the authors made claims to
the press that weren't backed up by the paper in a scientifically
rigorous fashion.  That is why they are getting criticized (and that
Darwinius isn't validly published makes it look even worse, for the
authors and whoever peer-reviewed the paper).