Ben Creisler
Some recent items:
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Terrible Lizards podcast:
S04E01 Tyrannosaurs (with Dave Hone)
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How big was the Archbishop (undescribed Tendaguru sauropod)?
More background info:
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Rare find: Paleontologists discover nearly complete dinosaur fossil in SW China (Chinese article on this discovery posted earlier on the DML)
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Dinosaur discoveries from Cretaceous continue in the region of Presidente Prudente in Brazil (in Portuguese)
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Oregon Has Two Dinosaurs, with Gregory J. Retallack from the University of Oregon
Virtual OMSI Science Pub (video)Â Â
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Iguanodon: Your Dinosaurs Are Wrong #26 (video)
Note that jaw muscles could have functioned like "cheeks" in ornithischians...
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Notosuchus, subject of new study presented at 2021 meeting before official publication (in Spanish)
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Non-dino:
How do birds jump?
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Meeting Pealeâs Mastodon
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Dinosaur-Destroying Asteroid Gave Rise to Modern Rainforests
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Miocene shark extinction discovered
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Free pdf:
NussaÃbah B. Raja & Emma M. Dunne (2021)
Publication pressure threatens the integrity of palaeontological research.
Preprint
Publications are the de facto currency of academia. Academics, palaeontologists included, are often judged by publication metrics, which usually include the impact factor of the journal in which they publish, the number of publications and the number of citations. However, in the race to publish in high-impact journals and the pressure to increase research productivity, sometimes corners are cut, leading to an increase in scientific and other types of misconduct. In this paper, we demonstrate how ethical, and even legal, transgressions within palaeontology, particularly regarding the provenance of fossil specimens, are inherently related to the pressure faced by academic researchers to publish "novel" studies in high-impact journals. We note how papers in high-impact journals follow a consistent theme of either showcasing novel evidence or methods, or describing charismatic or unusual specimens, often dinosaur-related. We examine notable recent examples of these papers that have been linked to ethical and legal problems, which have ironically been brought to light by virtue of the paper being widely publicised as highly âimpactfulâ. Finally, we discuss the importance of developing an ethical framework for scientific publishing, which currently does not exist; only a handful of professional palaeontological bodies, including societies and journals, have independently developed policies to combat these issues. While the culture of "publish or perish" lingers in palaeontology, there will be no incentive for more ethical research that better serves both science and society to prevail.
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This last (and least) section comes with a disclaimer. These are examples of uncritical journalism and sloppy scientificÂthinking....
Brian Ford "aquatic dinosaur" quackery taken seriously with no critical comment responses from paleontologists... (???)
Feduccia book review...
"Another aspect of Feduccia's skepticism is that Ostrom's model requires that birds and avian flight evolve in bipedal theropods with greatly shortened forelimbs."
The reviewer needed to point out that this argument is ludicrous and harks back to notions of "internal drives" and other long-abandoned ideas associated with Neo-Lamarkism and orthogenesis and typological thinking. The idea that theropod forelimbs CANNOT evolve or change in size and shape because some early theropods had short forelimbs and digits, or that Tyrannosaurus or some other theropods later evolved short forelimbs, is preposterous. It's like arguing that early artiodactyls cannot be the ancestors of whales because they had longÂlimb bones and short toes that could not evolve into the short arm bones and long digits in flippers. As I recall Tom Holtz saying once, evolution happens.