RE: not the PDF-request of Original description of Lagosuchus and/or Marasuchus

[Anthony Docimo <keenir@hotmail.com>]

----------------------------------------
> Date: Tue, 13 Apr 2010 06:27:09 -0500
> From: davidpeters@att.net
> To: david.marjanovic@gmx.at; dinosaur@usc.edu
> Subject: Re: PDF-request: Original description of Lagosuchus and/or Marasuchus
>
>
> On Apr 13, 2010, at 5:24 AM, David Marjanovic wrote:
>
>>> There's no "tone" to this other than mild frustration at the recent
>>> glut of cladograms with generally fewer than twenty taxa, many
>>> supraspecific and all selected a priori with no overriding study to
>>> support these choices.
>>
>> Well, you sometimes give me the impression that you're frustrated at the 
>> fact that nobody sits down and does a really big study. That isn't done 
>> because it's just too much work, and you give the impression of not knowing 
>> how much work a big morphological phylogenetic analysis is.
>
> Still, it needs to be done. I did it. So it can be done. 
 
 if you did it, why does it need to be done again?
(did you do as bad a job as you say others do?  if not, I don't understand why 
it has to be done over)
 
 
>> Well, no. You don't observe the specimens in person, you rely on the 
>> literature, even though the literature often lacks descriptions or 
>> illustrations of important body parts (which often only turned out to be 
>> interesting decades after publication), even though the illustrations that 
>> are there are often misleading about 3D relationships (this holds even for 
>> good photos [pers. obs.], never mind line drawings!), and so on.
>
> You stand by your statement "You don't observe the specimens in person."? 
> That can be falsified by seeing one specimen in person.
 
so....you've seen one amniote specimen in person, and that's enough?
 
if someone told me I could only see and read one book in person, and I had to 
rely on book reports and ads for all the other books, I'd be very very upset.
 
>This can be falsified by several papers in which descriptions and 
>illustrations of important body parts are included.
> You stand by your statement, "the illustrations that are there are often 
> misleading about 3D relationships". This can be falsified by several papers 
> in which illustrations are not misleading about 3D relationships.
>>
>>> Bill Parker wrote: No. First hand observation is crucial.
>>>
>>> Yes and no. See Bill's notes about preconceived ideas, etc. above,
>>> which support my POV. No, testing is crucial. Do the observations
>>> create weird autapomorphies? If so, time to rethink.
>>
>> No -- time to look at the specimens again. If the autapomorphies really are 
>> weird, as demonstrated by the specimens, _then_ it's time to rethink.
>
> Thanks for agreeing.
 
 so you agree that firsthand observation is required.
 

>
>>
>>> Bottom line, we both know
>>> what we're doing -- most of the time.
>>
>> Now that I've explained to you why potentially continuous characters should 
>> be ordered, and what the difference between a matrix for phenetic analysis 
>> and a matrix for phylogenetic analysis is, this is true (...I hope). 5 years 
>> ago it wasn't.
>
> Why would you pretend that I don't know this when I'm able to separate 
> caseids from eupelycosaurs, etc. etc. while others are not? This is a red 
> herring and a meaningless jab.
 
so is claiming that you're all that stands between paleontological gnosis and 
the darkness the rest of us inhabit.
 
 
>> Look, we can wait for a year. There's no problem.
>
> Then be patient.
 
 It is easier to be patient (for something from you or anyone else) when you 
aren't saying over and over in the meanwhile about how there's a lack.
 
 
 
>>> And I am in a position to raise red flags.
>> Based on rather subjective reasons.
>
> Again, you're insulting without evidence. Please provide details.
 
 Interesting anecdote.
 
 
 
>>> There's no glory in subjecting myself to your adjectives about my
>>> character, motivations and emotions. I do this because I'm only after
>>> one thing: what we're all after.
>>
>> You're _not_ doing it. You're trying to get results without doing enough 
>> work.
>
> Seriously, David, if you were correct this work would already be done better 
> and by someone else.
 
??
if he's right about you wanting results without work?  how would "you asking 
often"="someone does work"?  (I can see how one might lead to the second, true)
 
 
>
>                                         
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