If you read the full paper, you'll see that they continue to "underlook" the role of electric currents.Theoretically, several historical models had initially considered the electric current to be an input parameter. For example, “circuit models” for solar flares prescribed the total current I as it is in laboratory experiments (see e.g. Alfvén & Carlqvist 1967; Spicer 1982). More generally, one approach to plasma physics that is often used in the magnetospheric community (and is advocated by e.g. Melrose 1995; Heikkila 1997) is to make every calculation with the equations that use the electric field E and the current densityJas variables. This is the so-called “E;J paradigm”. But both circuit models and the E;J paradigm have been criticized throughout the years (see Parker 1996a,b, 2001). Inthisline,E.N.Parker argued that they should be substituted by the“B;v paradigm”in MHD. In the latter,the current densities J merely result from the generation of a finite curl of themagnetic field B through Ampère’s equation, as a direct result of plasma flows v through the ideal induction equation. So, the current is not a prime variable, since it does not even appear in the governing equations of MHD. For this reason, electric currents have been underlooked for years.
The biggest problem with the mainstream is their severe and palpable fear of taking their theories to the lab and seeing how they work out in real life experiments. Instead they sit around and whip up computer models that put the magnetic cart in front of the electric work horse and they "pretend" that is a valid substitute for real life experiments. If and when the mainstream can ever manages to produce high temperature "magnetic ropes" that stay at high temperatures for hours on end in a real lab experiment, I'll have some real faith in their "computer models". As it stands, I think they're so deathly afraid of laboratory failure that they refuse to even put their beliefs to the test in real life plasma physics experiments in the lab.
The only experiments I've seen to date based on so called "magnetic reconnection" theory either started with an electric field to produce the "ropes" or they lasted a second or two before all the so called "magnetic energy" was dissipated and gone. Never have I seen a real lab experiment on "magnetic reconnection" recreate a high temperature plasma thread and sustain it at high temperatures for hours on end and produced sustained high temperature current sheets.
As the saying goes, one test is worth a thousand expert options. In this case however I think it's more like one laboratory test is worth 8,000 expert opinions and a 1000 computer models.