Ladies, Take Note.

This is very very important! For science!

LNJ

Ian Murphy Visits The Creationist Museum

Murphy writes for "The Beast", my favorite bipartisan scourge. He penned this account of his visit to Ken Ham's exciting experiment in alternative science, during which he appropriately masqueraded as the mentally retarded mascot of a phony Christian newspaper. He also wrote this equally entertaining road trip story.

This country is completely fucked.

LNJ

William Smith's Bitchin' Map

Getting an area mapped is a pretty satisfying feeling, and gives me the absurd sense that I have really mastered the landscape in front of me. If I have explored an area thoroughly enough to map it in detail, I know that I have really nailed the stratigraphy...or at least that I probably nailed it as well (or better) than anyone else ever has, and conceivably as well as it is possible to. It is an awesome feeling to walk through an area that I have been mapping, wandering back and forth and all around to see it from all different angles until I really understood the physical relationship between different layers, and have the whole landscape before me make sense as a structure, as a story.

As I have argued elsewhere, my experiences both in my dissertation area and in PEFO have convinced me that a detailed map is not just a nice supplement to stratigraphic work, but is absolutely essential for a stratigraphic model to be considered reliable. A map ideally serves as evidence that you explored the distribution of rock units personally, and that you could trace these distributions in a way consistent with your understanding of their superpositonal relationships. If you trace two units you think are the same layer into the same area, and one turns out to dive underneath the other, your lithostratigraphic model is in need of modification...and as a direct consequence, so is the biostratigraphic model you built on it. In stratigraphy, geography is everything. Stratigraphy is a three-dimensional endeavor, not a two-dimensional one.

This often tragically under appreciated fact goes back to the founding of geology as a real science in the early 19th century. Lithostratigraphy, biostratigraphy, and geologic mapping were the inventions of the same man, a British canal surveyor named William Smith. Smith's critical insights and methods are beautifully explained in Simon Winchester's book, "The Map That Changed The World." However, although Winchester alludes early on to the importance of Smith's work in reshaping our understanding of Earth history away from Genesis and Ussher, he seems to have forgotten to talk about it later. The book ends with Smith's death, and does not really go into the fundamental importance of Smith's work to historical geology and paleontology.

Smith had two major insights. First, that rock strata can be traced geographically, and maintain their superpositional relationships wherever they are traced. Second, that the fossils vary between different strata, and likewise maintain consistent superpositional relationships in different geographic areas. Although in the almost 200 years since Smith we have found numerous complications and exceptions to these principles, their basic significance can hardly be understated. Only the introduction of radioisotopic dates had comparable importance in understanding the history of life as a narrative.

Consider the following list of statements, all made possible due to Smith's insights:

-Human beings lived after dinosaurs.

-The first fish showing a superficially tetrapod-like fin structure appear before the first fish-like tetrapods, which appear before less fish-like tetrapods, which appear before the first amniotes.

-Permian and Triassic synapsids showed an increasing number of mammal-like characters over time, with mammals appearing after the most mammal-like non-mammalian therapsids.

-Australopithecines appear before the earliest members of the genus Homo, which appear before more advanced members of the genus Homo, which appear before the first anatomically modern humans.

Smith didn't just allow us to make a the history of life into a story, in which events could be ordered, and cause and effect inferred based on the ordering of these events. His observations made it possible to determine that the fossil record supported evolution, by showing that forms appeared in a particular order consistent with evolutionary change. Consequently, I would argue that William Smith's contribution to understanding the history of life is on par with that of Charles Darwin. Darwin demonstrated that evolutionary change was a reality, and gave us a mechanism for that change, but it was Smith who gave us the tools for figuring out how the history of life actually unfolded.

Smith also made another brilliant innovation: he figured out how to document stratigraphy geographically, by plotting the exposures of rock strata on a map. Moreover, he illustrated the effectiveness and importance of geologic mapping as a way of testing stratigraphic models in the most dramatic way possible: by helping people make money off it. Smith's explorations were originally a way of finding the best routes for canals, but also applied to helping people figure out if economic commodities like coal and building stone could be found on their land. It is worth pointing out to creationists that the effectiveness of lithostratigraphy and biostratigraphy, the tools used for deriving evolutionary history, can be demonstrated by the fact that they have electricity and gas. Millions of dollars are staked on the effectiveness of these geologic tools, and it pays off. The money says historical geology is on a solid foundation.

Smith's first geologic map was of the area around Bath. Unfortunately it is (I am told) in Nottingham, so I didn't get a chance to see it. However, his completed geological map of England, published in 1815, is justifiably more famous. It is a monumental piece of work, and comparisons of the outcrop patterns with modern geologic maps of Great Britain shows that Smith really nailed it.

I had the privilege of seeing two copies. One is mounted in the lounge of the Geology Department in the University of Bristol, framed but not behind glass, and a little ragged at the seams. Unfortunately, my pictures came out a little blurry:


The other copy hangs at the home of the British Geological Society in Burlington House, a few blocks from Piccadilly Circus in London. This copy is framed behind glass, and is in absolutely magnificent condition. It looks like it was printed yesterday. The somewhat confused and long-suffering girl at the reception desk, who had only been working there about six days, could not understand why I wanted her to photograph me in front of a pair of green curtains (I couldn't photograph the actual map due to "copyright issues"), but did her best.


I still got more hair than him, hee hee.

LNJ

My Shiva Crater Art And Our Official Disclaimer

As an undergraduate and grad student at Colorado State University and Texas Tech University, I occasionally did scientific illustration for various individuals. My skull drawings and life portraits of Puerto Rican bats were published a few years ago, and the "delightful drawing of bat faces" alluded to in this review of the book are mine, oh yes. I thought they could have been printed a little bigger, and at better resolution, because they are indeed delightful little bat faces. Unfortunately I cannot find them online, and my copies are in storage in Lubbock.

Artwork I did for Chatterjee pops up online from time to time. I did most (but not all) of the figures for this Microraptor paper, and also this life reconstruction. This one on Shiva Crater was just posted on Dragon's Tales.

Part of what makes me a good scientific illustrator is that I do as I am told.

On an unrelated note (no, I am not being facetious this time), Bill and I have some concerns to express. The text below is presented as our formal disclaimer, which may end up having to find its way into the cover letter of every paper we submit for the rest of our lives. Although we have not yet experienced any real problems yet from the attitude described below, which has mostly been pretty subtle, we want to nip this in the bud before it becomes a real nuisance. If you ever find yourself reviewing one of our papers, please read the following carefully before you even THINK of accusing us of personal bias in our scientific work. If we criticize someone's science, it is because we think the science has problems.

In the time since the ruling by the SVP Executive Committee and the New Mexico DCA on our allegations in Aetogate, we have begun to detect a certain curious attitude in some of our colleagues as to how we should interact professionally with Spencer Lucas and his colleagues in the future. Specifically, we have received the distinct impression from certain colleagues that we are expected to tone down our criticisms of their scientific work. We are not certain if this feeling is based on the assumption that we are too unprofessional to separate personal animosity from our evaluation of their science, or simply that we should go out of our way to not appear vindictive. We wish to address both of these possible rationales here.

We make no apologies for our insistence on publicly standing up for ourselves and for ethical scientific practice, or for inconveniencing certain members of the vertebrate
paleontological community with our refusal to mince words or peaceably accept rulings on our allegations that we still consider to have ignored or downplayed the issues we raised. However, our anger and disappointment is directed at behavior that we consider detrimental to the integrity of good scientific practice, and the objective evaluation of the work of colleagues is just as important to that integrity. Presenting misleading and vindictive attacks on colleagues is bad for science. So is cushioning valid criticisms merely so that they do not create the appearance of vindictiveness. We intend to do neither.

Our professional interests on Late Triassic stratigraphy and systematics mean that citation and commentary on the work of Lucas and his colleagues is unavoidable. Moreover, our own research (well as those of the many colleagues who share our interest in the Triassic) have raised discrepancies between our observations and the claims of Lucas and his colleagues. As a result, published conflicts in opinion are unavoidable, and probably will be for the rest of our careers. The only alternative is to leave the field of vertebrate paleontology, or at least not publish on the same subjects as Lucas and his colleagues. However, although this tactic has been adopted by some of our colleagues, and has been suggested to us from time to time, we have chosen not to pursue it. This is because letting dubious scientific claims go unchallenged just to avoid controversy seems counterproductive to us.

Being accused of ethical misconduct does not make Lucas and his colleagues immune to scientific criticism. Nor does being the accusers deprive us of our professional right and obligation to make such criticisms, in peer review or in our own manuscripts, if they are warranted. We certainly hope that reviewers of manuscripts will point out if our comments seem more vitriolic than strictly needed to make our case. However, we also ask that they not assume that criticisms are motivated solely by personal animosity, or expect us to tone down critiques if it means obscuring a valid argument against what we consider to be questionable scientific claims.

Thanks.

So Wrong

Yes dammit, Pharyngula again.

Meyers posted on a painting a little while ago which proved conclusively that Jesus presented the Constitution to the American people personally, and that he had a hell of an expensive-looking wardrobe for a poor Jewish teacher living in first century Palestine. And that Abraham Lincoln is like, "what the fuck?" I wonder if the artist is aware that Thomas Jefferson's take on religion was a little different than that of modern Christian conservatives.

Someone with way too much time on thier hands has produced a modifed version of the painting.

LNJ

Darwin Worship

I am back from England in awe at having visited the birthplace of modern biology and geology, and really fucking annoyed at the casual and routine suppression of biological reality that goes on in my own country. In England, one can find references to Darwin everywhere, and they even put his face on the 10 pound note. It is almost as if they are not afraid to acknowledge that evolutionary theory exists, and that it is important. It isn't fucking fair.

So, let us talk about Darwin worship! Yes! And in doing so, allow me to recycle an old VERTPALEO list message I once sent instead of having to write something completely new.

There are a couple of annoying myths about "Darwin worship": first that it exists, and second that Darwin never actually figured out anything important anyway. "Darwin worshipers", like the liberals who elected Obama just because of the exciting novelty of his skin color, are straw people. I don't know of anyone who "worships" Darwin (although there are plenty who are amazed at what he set in motion with a single book, and the amount of evidence that he documented in that book). Anyone who has any familiarity with evolutionary history knows perfectly well that a lot that of what Darwin thought was wrong. How many cases do you know of modern biologists or paleontologists who ignore or downplay post-Darwinian advances in evolutionary theory and genetics, and the rate and timing of evolutionary change, because they conflict with what Saint Darwin thought?

Nonetheless, it is pretty awe-inspiring how much he got right. The acceptance of evolution by natural scientists, not just as an interesting possibility, but as a reality, began with the publication of the Origin of Species, not with the works of Chambers or Lamark. Darwin's exhaustively researched and well-reasoned book built a remarkably solid foundation for evolutionary theory. I think that it is particularly worth pointing out that natural selection, the mechanism for adaptive evolution that Darwin is most closely associated with today, wasn't considered that important in the first few generations after Origin was published; Darwin was immortalized simply for documenting the reality that evolution had occurred. Moreover, he did it relying almost entirely on extant organisms, as the fossil record of the time wasn't of much use to him.

It is hard to see how anyone can miss that the Origin of Species was a major turning point in our understanding of biology and paleontology, and in the relationship between science and religion. Yes, the ideas that we may have a common origin with animals, and that nature may operate on non-supernatural processes, were around before Darwin..but Darwin jackhammered both ideas into the minds of scientists and lay people in a way that no one before him had even come close to accomplishing. Darwin's work represented a major turning point in the history of life science, and in the way that lay people look at life science and religion. THAT is what we celebrate on Darwin's B-Day; not the man as much as what his work set in motion.

If Darwin's proper place in the history of biology and paleontology is misunderstood by lay people and misrepresented by creationists...well,throw it on the pile. Getting the general public to have a basic understanding how natural selection is supposed to work, and the evidence that macroevolution has occurred, are probably more pressing problems than correcting the misconception that we "worship" Darwin.

Look, here is Saint Darwin in the British Museum of Natural History. Also, check out my kickass new profile picture.


LNJ