The dirt was complicated on this one. The site is on a hill so not only did I have to account for dip between dates, I also had to account for different rates of sedimentation (as dirt rolls downhill, so is thicker there than uphill). R script and data included if you, too, have lumpy dirt to date!
Happy #FossilFriday here is a wee climate paper that I coauthored. We found that 20kya eastern Washington was drying and warming up and chasing away all the pesky pine trees (ew, trees).
As usual with pleistocene stuff, my job was figuring out how old all the dirt was (age-depth modelling)
Yes I saw the words suggests and potentially in the title but it kind of looks like POTENTIALLY this lack of data science could SUGGEST this paper is so undercooked that it's misrepresenting a spurious correlation as some sort of world ending click bait bullshit.
Y'know. POSSIBLY.
Why did they use 11 population averages and not the raw data?
How many data points are in each average?
Where do they prove the data within each year is normally distributed and so an average rather than a median is appropriate at all?
Not a biochemist but... Where is the R-squared value for that regression of 11 population averages that they are using for this point?
Where is the analysis to compare fit between linear and nonlinear regressions to show that this is a continuous increase not something tapering off?
"The Islamists oppose women getting an education," I mutter, as I aim my missile at the girls school
Myhrvold, who previously denied any close association with Epstein, contributed a letter to the birthday book as well as a collection of sexually explicit wildlife photos he apparently took during a trip to Africa, according to a redacted copy of the book released Monday. In the letter purportedly penned by Myhrvold, the Seattle multimillionaire celebrates Epstein, who would become the subject of a sprawling child sex trafficking investigation two years later. "A few years ago somebody at a party asked me 'Does Jeffrey Epstein mange your money?'' Myhrvold allegedly wrote in the letter to the New York financier. "I replied 'No, but he advises me on lifestyle'. The guys eyes bugged out of his head and he said 'REALLY?'"
Again we have public denials of any close association but then he was close enough to contribute to Epstein’s awful birthday book in 2003
www.seattletimes.com/business/mic...
If the paleo community is going to be serious about Horner’s connection to Epstein, we also have to be serious about Myhrvold’s, because guess who contributed photos of animals mating to Epstein’s birthday book and has been appearing in new paleo papers this year - including the new Spinosaurus.
Not the kind of person you want to coauthor with or accept funding from...
In which I provide a few thoughts on the new Spinosaurus species, S. mirabilis.
www.newscientist.com/article/2516...
I also stressed the deep connections between one of the study authors - Nathan Myhrvold - and Geoffrey Epstein to New Scientist. They didn't mention it, neither has anyone else.
Screenshot from the 2023 SVP Annual Meeting program, showing the title and authorship of a first-authored abstract from Robert Reisz.
(11/n) At least as of 2023, he was still allowed to submit first-authored abstracts to the annual meeting (presumably having a collaborator present in his stead). I was a bit miffed to realize that he could do this since I was still giving SVP free labor by being on the program committee that year.
(4/n) There's no indication that the Ethics Chair (who is the Vice Prez of ExComm, at least recently) receives any training in ethics or legal handling of ethics violations. Why does this matter? B/c like a lot of other things that PhD-holders are asked to do, a PhD does not prepare one for that!
I have nothing of substance to add re: the condemnation of paleo associations with Epstein, but as the initiator of one of the more recent high-profile SVP ethics cases who spent months going through their process, I have some thoughts re: SVP's handling of ethics cases/reports.
A thread 🧵:
If you need 150 people in palaeontology, geology, zoology, scicomm and related. And I could list more, but ran out of space!
this is all i see (text was too long so i had to write it on discord)
i really hope SVP actually does enact proper change, actually listen to the people who've been pushing for this for how ever long. they need to earn back our trust, dont let the higher ups forget that
Jack Horner Facebook post from 12 Feb. So, while I'm being investigated by SVP, why don't you outraged paleo-people get back to doing some factual science, using the scientific method. You seem to have forgotten how that works, you know, using actual evidence? For Darren, I think this is essential, as I get the impression from his DinoCon disinvite, he's still cheesed off from Kevin and I pummeling him over the whole Darwin sexual selection argument back in 2013. But, I do thank you Darren, for weeding out the invasive nuisances from my social media platforms, I was curious as to how I was going to do that on my own.
For people outside of paleontology:
This senior paleontologist, who married a 19-year-old, visited a convicted pedophile in 2012 & 2016. Is beefing over a conference argument from 13 years ago, angry because he was banned from a family-friendly event across the Atlantic. The level of petty.
Fuck me. Wish I was surprised. So the next SVP sounds like it will be hosting plenty of predators and a possible active shooter situation. What a fun combo!
And the next 2 meetings are a few hours drive from this guys home. And they will give no indication that he is not welcome back
3 days later, the Horner - Epstein timeline has been viewed 114,000 times.
Thanks to everyone who shared to help ensure that this information was not buried. I do not have power to enact change on my own, but I do have the research skills to bring facts to light.
The people who couldn't do enough research to see if a guy actually worked for homeland security (he did not) are now saying they have to 'monitor events' and look for 'reliable sources' regarding the paleontologists in the Epstein files.
Not promising.
Pretty sure nothing happened to this individual. The guy had guns in his hotel room. SVP knew he was an issue in advance and instead of rejecting his abstract, they asked him to edit it to not name specific people in his weird manifesto.
★"The trip actually took place in South Dakota, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, where collecting fossils on reservation land without explicit tribal permission is considered looting."
Wikipedia, which in the teens became the 5th most visited website, had this as the second sentence on JE's page: "He served 13 months in jail of an 18-month sentence as a convicted sex offender in the state of Florida for soliciting an underage girl for prostitution"
web.archive.org/web/20111124...
A big take-home message: most field work is organised and led by men, and men are bad at ensuring the physiological needs of their students are met.
Male scientists still find natural phenomena like menstruation and maternity to be taboo.
While no harassment in international forums has been experienced by the 39 women asked, half of them have experienced some sort of discrimination during the peer review or publication process.
64.1% considered that age also plays a factor in how they are treated and seen by their colleagues.
Of the 39 women asked, 72% has experienced some misogynistic in nature harassment. 22 have experienced psychological or verbal harassment in academia. 5 have experienced sexual harassment. Gender and race are intertwined in the type of harassment experienced.
New paper to reflect on during the International Women in Science Day.
🧪⛏️⚒️🦕🦖
"Barriers Affecting Mexican Women in Paleontology: Challenges and Proposals for Building a Women’s Support Network"
paleontologiamexicana.geologia.unam.mx/index.php/pa...
Screenshot of a statement from SVP that they find “no policy violations” in having members appear in the Epstein letters
Really SVP? You’re just going to ignore decades of sexual and academic misconduct, marrying a student AT one of your conferences, and every report I’ve filed (implying that’s what you do with reports) to defend famous Horner? You’d rather have pedophiles than students is your message?
Over the years I’ve filled two reports of serious misconduct at SVP meetings and barely gotten acknowledgment of receipt. No consequences.
From @geopetalfabric.bsky.social and @maryanningsrevenge.bsky.social.
You can follow the podcast at @weirdanddead.bsky.social.
www.patreon.com/posts/150459...
