I will not likely be able to respond until March 9th
My current inclination is to promote this (reluctantly) on March 9th. When you are ready to discuss it, indicate by posting a new message to this thread.
My reluctance is because I see little of interest here. I believe McFadden to be presenting speculative hypotheses which are unlikely to receive the empirical support that would be needed for them to become accepted science. However I am inclined to promote the topic so as to allow you the opportunity to make the case that there is more going on here than I suspect.
I welcome comments from other admins on whether this should be promoted earlier, or whether we should close it without promotion.