Fragmentary remains of two ancient human relatives, Australopithecus sediba and Homo naledi, were carried aboard a Virgin Galactic flight on Sept. 8. Departing from Spaceport America in New Mexico, the fossils, carried by South African-born billionaire Timothy Nash in a cigar-shaped tube, were rocketed to the edge of space.
“I am horrified that they were granted a permit,” Sonia Zakrzewski, a bioarchaeologist at the University of Southampton in the U.K., wrote in an X thread, noting she would use it as an example in her class about unethical approaches. “This is NOT science.”
So yes, despite the misleading title these priceless remains of our shared hominid heritage made it back, safe in the pocket of an arrogant billionaire.
But why even risk it in the first place? There’s absolutely no reward and some risk. That’s dumb.
Moreover, this stunt is part of a disturbing trend of scientifically questionable promotion from Lee Burger, who was already a big name within archeology after finding Sediba and now on his way to wider celebrity since Naledi.
Homo Naledi is incredible in almost every regard - location, dates, preservation, number of individuals, morphology. It’s nuts.
But recently Burger has been doing things like putting out press releases before peer review, timing them to boost his Netflix show. The latest claims of fire, tools and abstract carved symbols ended up failing peer review but were published anyway. They are full of tests not done, obvious hypotheses not considered, specialists not consulted, numbers that didn’t replicate and some weirdly partially obscured images. But he’s still out there, getting his conclusions into the public consciousness when they are not scientifically verified.
Yet another publicity stunt with no scientific merit is sure to piss off archeologists.
Having only recently seen the show, can you point me to more information about Lee Burger? Is there an agenda there beyond trying to make money?
I don’t know anything about agendas.
There’s a lengthy video from Gutsick Gibbon that goes over the peer reviews in detail. History Hit has separate interviews with Burger and professor Chris Stringer. If you search for ‘homo naledi peer review’ you should find some articles.
ITT: people who know nothing about and have no interest in archaeology and paleontology arguing why this doesn’t matter. You guys do know you’ve wandered into an Archaeology thread, right?
Something about South African billionaires just turns brains to mush.
As an archaeologist, this is hilariously shocking. I cannot stop laughing at how ridiculous of a move this is.
Yet another South-African-born billionaire shooting dumb things into space? I thought one was more than enough.
billionaire dick measuring and trophy hunting… what will they not waste merely to say they could…
It was pointless, which is a reason to have not taken them, but they’re back now so it’s kind of a moot point. Just a “don’t do it again” situation.
What’s the problem here? Just some dick taking a bone to space? Am I missing the issue?
What would happen if the ship had blown up? We would have lost those fossils. That’s at least irresponsible.
They’re already lost if some rich fuck owns them
Why does this matter? They’re bones, there’s more of them, and we’ll find more in the future. Even if they were actually lost, I see no problem with this. Just a rich dude being a rich dude.
