RE: Sinosauropteryx filament melanosomes challenged

[Jaime Headden <qi_leong@hotmail.com>]

David Marjanovic wrote:

<Let me quibble with that "because". In my Internet experience, the 
Unmentionables routinely omit recent research ("recent" often meaning 
"everything from the last few decades, and almost everything from the last 
several decades") because they have no clue it has ever been done -- they don't 
even get the idea that it _might_ ever have been done. Genuine ignorance in 
concert with intellectual laziness must not be underestimated.>

  I think this premise is flawed. I think that evidence has been borne that the 
authjors ignore the work unless they can directly contradict it. It is not 
enough for them to, as some others have done, to mention a paper and simply 
dismiss its argument (often with a personalized remark or to simply say that "I 
disagree" or "that is _patently_ wrong" and then proceed with their own 
argument). The routine of ommission is both deliberate, and the authors may not 
simply care that the research is necessary to contradict, as they may only need 
to champion their own plausible argument (which is how it works in some forms 
of debate: you don't HAVE to address your opponent's argument; you merely have 
just to support your own when your target is an audience and not the opponent) 
and thus can reliably and consitently pretend other research does not matter.

  When Heinrich Mallison argues that comments like this are reminiscent of a 
certain group, he is correct, because they employ an identical debate strategy: 
Drown the audience in pro-self data points, and completely ignore the 
opponent's commentary (because that's all that it is to them, comments and not 
data). This has a tendency to reveal two things: a belief system and a weakness 
to confront, both on the part of such argumenters. (And I'm not saying TLS does 
actually believe he is correct in his regards of ignoring birds and anything 
else in Liaoning, or that he believes that birds are not dinosaurs, but his 
arguments are in line with those of Jones, Olsen and Feduccia, who have made 
similar forms of argument and more directly espousals of a BAND comment). 

Cheers,

Jaime A. Headden
The Bite Stuff (site v2)
http://qilong.wordpress.com/

"Innocent, unbiased observation is a myth." --- P.B. Medawar (1969)


"Ever since man first left his cave and met a stranger with a
different language and a new way of looking at things, the human race
has had a dream: to kill him, so we don't have to learn his language or
his new way of looking at things." --- Zapp Brannigan (Beast With a Billion 
Backs)





----------------------------------------
> Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2010 02:02:45 +0100
> From: david.marjanovic@gmx.at
> To: dinosaur@usc.edu
> Subject: Re: Sinosauropteryx filament melanosomes challenged
>
> > I have always found the BANDit papers highly reminiscent to
> > creationist writings. Omitting recent research because it totally
> > invalidates their points is a classic method used by both groups.
>
> Let me quibble with that "because". In my Internet experience, the
> Unmentionables routinely omit recent research ("recent" often meaning
> "everything from the last few decades, and almost everything from the
> last several decades") because they have no clue it has ever been done
> -- they don't even get the idea that it _might_ ever have been done.
> Genuine ignorance in concert with intellectual laziness must not be
> underestimated.
>
> From reading things like Feduccia's 1996 book (ninety-six, not seventy-
> and not even eighty-), which blithely states as a matter of fact that
> hadrosaurs were aquatic (and therefore had much better preservation
> potential than tyrannosaurs, making the predator-prey ratios useless), I
> get the strong impression that the same is true of BANDits as well. They
> are not interested in anything but birds, so they don't know anything
> about anything but birds.
>
> The big fat difference is that the BANDits are professional scientists.
> We must expect them to know better, and I _mean_ "must". When I got the
> degree of Master, and again when I got the degree of Doctor, I had to
> _sign an oath_ stating (among other things) that I will keep my
> knowledge of my fields of research up to date and that I will form my
> opinions on scientific matters _in general_ based on the best of my
> knowledge and conscience. That was a prerequisite for my degrees
> becoming legally binding.
>
> So far, I'm not calling for anyone's degree to be revoked.* Let's blame
> the peer reviewers instead: when they (as it strongly appears) failed to
> insist that Lingham-Soliar read and cite Li et al. (2010), they failed
> at their (unpaid) job.
>
> * AFAIK, revoking a degree is generally considered next to unthinkable
> in the USA. Over here, it does happen when severe breaches of the
> mentioned oath occur.