Comment on the letter of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (SVP) dated April 21, 2020 regarding “Fossils from conflict zones and reproducibility of fossil-based scientific data”: Myanmar amber
Joachim T. Haug, Dany Azar, Andrew J. Ross, Jacek Szwedo, Bó Wáng, Antonio Arillo, Viktor Baranov, Julia Bechteler, Rolf G. Beutel, Vladimir Blagoderov, Xavier Delclòs, Jason A. Dunlop, Kathrin Feldberg, Rodney M. Feldmann, Christian Foth, René H.B. Fraaije, Alexander Gehler, Danilo Harms, Lars Hedenäs, Matúš Hyžný, John W.M. Jagt, Elena A. Jagt‐Yazykova, E.A. Jarzembowski, Hans Kerp, Phyo Kay Khine, Alexander G. Kirejtshuk, Christian Klug, Dmitry S. Kopylov, Ulrich Kotthoff, Jürgen Kriwet, Ryan C. McKellar, André Nel, Christian Neumann, Alexander Nützel, Enrique Peñalver, Vincent Perrichot, Anna Pint, Eugenio Ragazzi, Ledis Regalado, Mike Reich, Jouko Rikkinen, Eva‐Maria Sadowski, Alexander R. Schmidt, Harald Schneider, Frederick R. Schram, Günter Schweigert, Paul A. Selden, Leyla J. Seyfullah, Mónica M. Solórzano‐Kraemer, Jeffrey D. Stilwell, Barry W.M. van Bakel, Francisco J. Vega, Yongdong Wang, Lida Xing, Carolin Haug
Abstract
The signatories of this letter request significant changes to the common practices in palaeontology. With our present, multi-authored comment, we aim to argue why these suggestions will not lead to improvement of both practice and ethics of palaeontological research but, conversely, hamper its further development. Although we disagree with most contents of the SVP letter, we appreciate this initiative to discuss scientific practices and the underlying ethics. Here, we consider different aspects of the suggestions by Rayfield et al. (