Nice to see Gunter Bechly’s name on a paper again

Yes, okay, a paper on prehistoric cockroaches”

Abstract: (paywall) Unequivocal palaeontological evidence for viruses is usually absent. A specimen of the extinct predatory cockroach Stavba babkaeva gen. et sp. n. from Cretaceous Myanmar amber (98 Ma) shows symptoms of Deformed Wing Virus infection caused by pathogenic DWV-Iflavirus. The hindwing is undeveloped and both curled forewings are symmetrically deformed, differing from environmentally caused asymmetries known from Pripyat and Fukushima. While some unknown cockroach mutation might have the same symptoms, ontogenetic defects (such as incomplete moulting) differ in complete lack of sclerotization, modified forewing bases and presence on both wings. Post-depositional, taphonomic influence can be excluded due to local character of the deformation (forewings on both sides) while other areas are undeformed. Drying shrinking can be excluded due to brittle character of the wing, which would crack instead – and it could not, be local either. Pathogenic RNA-viruses probably circulated among vertebrates and invertebrate decomposers/predators in the dinosaur-age ecosystems. Our discovery complements an indirect putative evidence of Retrovirus infection that modified dinosaur bones. – Pathogenic DWV infection symptoms in a Cretaceous cockroach
Vršanský, Peter; Vršanská, Lucia; Beňo, Milan; Bao, Tong; Lei, Xiaojie; Ren, Xiaojie; Wu, Hao; Šmídová, Lucia; Bechly, Günter; Jun, Lv; Yeo, Melvyn; Jarzembowski, Edmund More.

Readers may remember Gunter Bechly from his getting disappeared from Wikipedia on account of his doubts about Darwin. Nice if concerted efforts to destroy him did not work.

It’s not even just heroes we want to see vindicated but ordinary joes and jills who can go about their business while saying, “I see plenty wrong with the dominant theory today.”

Physicists are allowed that but biologists aren’t. That’s because Darwinism functions very much as a religion for Darwinians, as philosopher Darwinian philosopher Michael Ruse: has often pointed out. Doubt about their theory is an attack on their faith.

See also: Gunter Bechly: Ediacaran Fossil Paper Is “Junk Science”

Paleontologist Gunter Bechly Live Tonight On What The Fossil Record Really Tells Us About Common Ancestry

Gunter Bechly: Decline of science? Imaged in a single paragraph

Gunter Bechly: Living fossils under massive attack

Gunter Bechly: New Human Find In The Philippines = New Headache For Darwinism

Fossil dragonfly named has implications for ID

Logic vs. the multiverse: Gunter Bechly offers some insights

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