Message-id: <1078.136.152.178.137.1202157655.squirrel@calmail.berkeley.edu> Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 12:40:55 -0800 (PST) From: Kevin Padian To: VRTPALEO@usc.edu Sender: owner-VRTPALEO@usc.edu Envelope-to: mike@indexdata.com Subject: Aetosaurs: back on track, please Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Can we get back on track, please, and away from the marginal distractions? This is not about `whether scientists are always ethical' or `can we post copyrighted material' or `who named the aetosaur first' or `who wants to publish more than anyone else.' This issue is important, at least if you're a working scientist. The focus should be on due process for a publicly made (and publicly aired) series of complaints of professional malfeasance. If you're an academic scientist and you don't think this issue is important, then please don't take graduate students. Graduate students all over North America and elsewhere are following these developments intently, because they feel vulnerable. But for obvious reasons, most of them are not saying anything right now. So the established people in this profession, in my view, should speak up to make sure that there is closure on this issue in fairness to all. I'm not advocating a particular outcome or judgment; I'm advocating due process. So what should be done about the current situation? Most important is the need for response from agencies that should provide recourse for perceived offenses. The proper channels are two: first, the SVP and professional museum organizations; and second, the administrative reporting line in the state of New Mexico. If the SVP does not address this question decisively, then its Ethics Committee is just window-dressing. Whatever it decides, it cannot simply report that "this is not our jurisdiction." It is, if it purports to represent the profession. If nothing else, it needs to advise non-specialists on standards of conduct and ethics in our field. The apparently dismissive actions of the reporting line in New Mexico are far more worrisome. But there is nothing to prevent any concerned citizen from writing these people and expressing your opinion. If you are not residents of New Mexico, you could explain constructively how their handling of the situation (which above all should respect fairness to everyone in the dispute) will affect the reputation of the Museum that they have an interest in protecting. Other people at that museum, including scientists, are being affected by this problem, after all. Let's hope that the SVP performs a similar role. Here are the public officials in NM who have been solicited on this complaint: Stuart A. Ashman, Cabinet Secretary Department of Cultural Affairs, State of New Mexico 407 Galisteo Street, Suite 260, Bataan Memorial Building Santa Fe, NM 87501 (505) 827-6364 www.newmexicoculture.org James Jimenez, Chief of Staff Office of the Governor, State of New Mexico State Capitol, Room 400 Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 505-476-2200 www.governor.state.nm.us Gary K. King, Attorney General of New Mexico P.O. Drawer 1508 Santa Fe, New Mexico 87504 (505) 827-6000 The complaints have been made; it's not a question of whether you support or reject them. The question is whether you think that it is important to resolve the issue through a transparent process, and urge those in authority to do so, or whether you don't think this is an issue, and they should not pursue it further. Tell them either way. Silence is acquiescence. It is not a matter of assigning guilt, but of demanding due process. For everyone. -- Kevin Padian Department of Integrative Biology & Museum of Paleontology University of California, Berkeley CA 94720-3140 510-642-7434 http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/people/padian/home.php