Vivian on 12/10/2011 at 17:51

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Some of you might have come across this little snippet:

Pop-science reportage: (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111010075530.htm)

Actual ref: (http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2011AM/finalprogram/abstract_197227.htm)

There is a relatively well-known fossil assemblage of whale-sized ichthyosaurs in the Luning formation of Nevada. Apart from the fact these things were fucking big repti-fish, one of the more interesting things about it is that there are so many of them buried together - how and why did 9(ish) of these huge things die and be buried in the same place?

To a palaeontologist, this of course raises all sorts of exciting questions. Where these things having a mating congregation, did they travel in pods, is this a family group, etc? You know, reasonable speculation that could lead to some neat insight into how these things lived, and how deep the whale comparison goes - maybe even develop a better idea of what the consistencies and 'rules' of transitioning from the land back to the sea are. (http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/facultyprofiles/ma_mcmenamin.html) To someone who may or may not be a massive idiot, this leads to the obvious conclusion that, of course, a GIGANTIC FUCKING OCTOPUS THAT NO ONE ELSE HAS EVER EVEN SUSPECTED EXISTED did it and, obviously, used the bones to draw a picture of itself.

This is easily the worst science I've heard of since those dickheads in the 70's injected an elephant with half a litre of LSD. The entire, extraordinary claim rests on two observations: A) Octopodes eat things, and B) Some of the ichthyosaur vertebrae are laid out in a way that sort-of looks like a tentacle (which they are saying is a self-portrait). That doesn't stand up to even the most rudimentary analysis - you're basing a comically large inference on a correlate of that inference and on something which is in itself an equally large inference. There's no facts in there at all.

As always, it seems to be getting a lot of press, and I'm left with the realisation that the media will always consider my work to be comic relief unless I can gather all of these feckless, big-mouthed morons from obscure institutions with hyperactive press departments into a giant bundle and roll them off a motorway flyover. I honestly cannot belief that these silly gits have tenure while I currently have two overdrafts at max and am living off peanut brittle and supernoodles.

demagogue on 12/10/2011 at 21:56

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You have my sympathies here. If it's any consolation, law schools are even worse. There are tenured gits & even heads of departments that prattle on in articles without any regard for academic integrity, methodology or grounding their claims at all (much less doing it badly), and they get treated like rock stars for these sensational arguments (easy to pull off when you don't have to worry about their soundness), as if clarity & good judgment were some kind of bourgeois conspiracy. Makes me wonder why I try so hard to be careful...

I should have become a corporate shill like RBJ. Not only do they make more money, but I bet they get rewarded for clear writing & checking their citations!

Azaran on 12/10/2011 at 22:33

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The only remains found from prehistoric sharks are their jaws, since everything else is cartilage and therefore perishable

twisty on 12/10/2011 at 23:43

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Hmnn..Sushi

Syndy/3 on 13/10/2011 at 08:27

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Well that fish may have survived millions of years. But that's just because he hadn't met the best predators on this planet yet.

http://babyboutiquesonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/little_baby.jpg