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Re: FYI -- bye-bye, 3/4?
I think the big disagreement with this is less about 3/4 vs 2/3, and more about
the existence of any "magic" number. The author of the article gives mention to
this in the last paragraph:
"A line drawn through a confounding scatter of data about specific animals
across orders of magnitude may be just a line, not a law."
Jason
--- On Tue, 2/9/10, don ohmes <d_ohmes@yahoo.com> wrote:
> From: don ohmes <d_ohmes@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: FYI -- bye-bye, 3/4?
> To: dinosaur@usc.edu
> Date: Tuesday, February 9, 2010, 1:56 PM
> --- On Mon, 2/8/10, David Marjanovic
> <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>
> wrote:
>
> > > And hello, more logical
> > 2/3...
> > >
> > > <http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100203101124.htm>
> >
> > Some people disagree with this, too, and for seemingly
> good
> > reasons.
> >
> > http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/02/nothing_will_stop_the_never-en.php#comment-2258567
> >
>
> Well, I was going to read the paper, but that's a joke, I
> don't have the time. And certainly it is no surprise
> generally that "some people disagree".
>
> The reason I post is this; apparently the "good reasons"
> part went over my head, as did the part about what exactly
> "they" don't agree with...
>
> I infer that Dodds' method was throw as much peer-reviewed
> data as was available on a scatter-plot and find the slope,
> which was 2/3, and then advance a hypothesis about
> underlying mechanical causes.
>
> What is the objection? Is the analysis flawed by bad data,
> or an incomplete sample? Is the trend valid empirically but
> "they" don't like his "explanation"?
>
> Or is there a basic disapproval of the search for a trend?
>
> To get back to dinosaurs -- interesting quote from the PR:
> "Especially for smaller guys," Dodds says, "like birds, it's
> just absolutely, stone-cold 2/3."
>
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