…and this is a 
Stuart Pivar is on a rampage again — he has rallied his lawyers and is on the attack. Not against me, fortunately, but against Robert Hazen, biochemist and author of the excellent book on abiogenesis, Genesis. His crime is that Hazen said a few generous things about Pivar's work once upon a time, Pivar inflated the remarks into a wholesale endorsement of his cockamamie theories, and when Hazen saw he was being touted as a True Believer™ in the evolution of balloon animals, he demanded that Pivar cease and desist.
Now Pivar claims this is a cruel attempt to silence the promulgation of his theory. I've put his full complaint below the fold.
SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK
COUNTY OF NEW YORK
STUART PIVAR,
Index No.
Plaintiff,
-against-
COMPLAINT
DR. ROBERT M. HAZEN,
(Declaratory Judgment)Defendant.
Plaintiff Stuart Pivar, by and for his complaint, states and alleges as follows:
PRELIMINARY STATEMENT
"Stuart Pivar's book, On the Origin of Form, contains ideas that deserve full scientific scrutiny, especially in light of the turmoil roiling evolutionary biology at present....This is a seismic event for science. Conventional evolutionary biologists are right to be very worried about this, because it has the potential to trigger the complete collapse of Modern Synthesis Biology."
Mark A.S. McMenamin, PhD
Paleontologist, Professor of Geology
Chair of Earth and Environment
Mt. Holyoke College1. This is an action for Declaratory Judgment brought pursuant to New York CPLR § 3001.
2. In 2007, Stuart Pivar asked several NASA scientists, among them Dr. Robert M. Hazen, to peer review a paper he had submitted to the Astrobiology Journal called The Simulation of Phyletic Form by a Novel Topological Algorithm (Complaint Exhibit 1). The premise of Mr. Pivar's theory, briefly stated, is that the body form of any species is encoded not in the DNA but in the patterned structure of the primordial germ plasm - the universal predecessor of the egg. Forms of life, moreover, can be simulated by the deformation of a simple geometric surface called the torus. This is a simple, easily understood model of self-organization comprehensible to even non-scientists. At the time Mr. Pivar submitted his paper, the Hypothetical Theory Editor, Norman Sleep, agreed to consider it for peer review and asked Mr. Pivar to nominate several scientists to review his article. Among those chosen for their expertise in cell membrane were Andrew Pohorille, David Dreamer, David des Marais, Rocco Mancinelli, and Jack Shostack, each of whom proceeded to either mock or to ignore Mr. Pivar's request for peer review. As a result of the shabby treatment by Pohorille, Dreamer, David des Marais, et. al., Astrobiology Journal editor-in- chief Sherry Cady abandoned any attempt at peer review of Mr.Pivar's paper, thereby dropping the entire matter of publication in her journal. The motivation for this rejection by the scientific community could best be explained by the inherent bias of peer review scientists who have a financial vested interest, such as research grants and teaching positions, in preserving their pet theories, while rejecting, without honest peer review, the ideas of "outsiders." When Mr. Pivar contacted Carl Pilcher, director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute, complaining about this state of affairs, in which peer review scientists with clear conflicts of interest in protecting their scientific domain from encroachment were allowed to treat a publicly funded agency, such as the Astrobiology Institute, as a self-congratulatory club of gate keepers more interested in preserving their financial well being than in pursuing real science, Mr. Pivar's complaint was met with the same sort of callous indifference demonstrated by Sherry Cady and her colleagues. Mr. Pivar went on to point out that the NASA Astrobiology Institute grants $15 million annually to its own scientists to study the origin of life, presumably so they can recognize life forms when they observe them in space. These scientists publish their theories of how life all began in peer review journals of which they are the editors. Their work is primarily based on the theory of the so-called Darwinian Synthesis, which states that life is formed by the natural selection of mutations resulting from errors in the DNA code, a theory which is also known as "the Modern Synthesis," an idea that has held sway for 75 years, after it was introduced by a group of biologists in the 1940's. Mr. Pivar further explained that twenty- five years ago evolutionary biologists like Richard Lewontin and Stephen Jay Gould decided that there was no code for the form organisms take in their genome In fact, no code has ever been discovered, and it is now generally accepted that the genes do not encode the form of the animal or plant will take, but instead, supply the materials of construction as the body self-organizes as do crystals. Scientists since the eighteenth century have sought to learn how self-organization works by studying patterns in the early stages of embryogenesis. In light of this uncertainty concerning the Form life takes, Mr. Pivar was appalled to discover that the NASA Astrobiology Institute only funds investigations based on" the Modern Synthesis." Papers on Self-Organization are rejected out of hand for publication in the NASA controlled Journals. The pernicious effect of this controversy is amply illustrated in what happened when Mr. Pivar finally did receive a lengthy, serious review of his work (Complaint Exhibit 2) by a distinguished scientist and author by the name of Dr. Robert M Hazen. which is the subject of this action for declaratory judgment.. Despite his initial interest in Mr. Pivar's ideas. Dr. Hazen later recanted his review - no doubt due in part to his concern for his standing in the scientific community. In an act that can only be described as one of intellectual dishonesty, Dr. Hazen then began complaining that he would sue the publisher of Mr. Pivar's latest work On the Origin of Form (Complaint Exhibit 3) scheduled to be published by North American Books if his original correspondence with Mr. Pivar was used in promoting this most recent work. The practical result of this interference has been the disruption of Mr. Pivar's relationship with his publisher, along with the cost and delay of having to revise the book's promotional material, thereby hindering the book reaching the public.
THE FACTS
2. Stuart Pivar is a scientist and author who lives and works in New York City.
3. Upon information and belief defendant Dr. Robert M Hazen is a scientist, author and educator who works and resides in Washington, D.C.. Dr. Hazen also transacts business in New York State.
4. On or about Saturday, July 18, 2009, in an email addressed to Jon Goodspeed, (Complaint Exhibit 4) Editorial Director of North Atlantic Books, the defendant made the following threat concerning the publication of Mr. Pivar's book, On The Origin of Form:
Dear Mr. Goodspeed:
I am writing to insist that you immediately cease and desist using my name in the promotion of a forthcoming publication by Stuart Pivar. I have never endorsed Mr. Pivar's ideas, nor has he obtained my permission to quote from any personal correspondence to him from me, especially as he has repeatedly done so out of context in a manner to suggest that I somehow endorse his ideas.
I am contacting the legal counsel of the Carnegie Institution and will be forced to take more extreme action if you persist in using my name in this unauthorized manner.
I will write a more detailed exposition of my unfortunate dealings with Mr. Pivar next week on my return from fieldwork in NW Vermont. In the mean time I trust that you will honor my request.
Sincerely,
Robert M. Hazen
5. In response to the defendant's threat of legal action, Jon Goodspeed was forced to write Mr. Pivar (Complaint Exhibit 4) the following email dated July 21, 2009, which read in part:
As you know, North Atlantic is acting only as your distributor. We did not get involved substantially, or impact in any material way, the editorial or art in your book. We are merely distributing the book for you. With that in mind, we ask you not to get us involved in this situation with Dr. Hazen. We can be useful and helpful to you, but only in a logistic context. We provide credibility and Random House distribution, and we will get your book into the osteopathic and alternate-health markets. Let us do what we can, and please keep us out of matters that do not pertain to us. Otherwise, you will create a situation in which it is impossible for us to continue working with you.
In addition, North Atlantic's business ethic is one that promotes respecting the wishes of others, especially when it involves the books we publish or distribute. We think Dr. Hazen's request is reasonable when he asks that you not use his material in your campaign. We hope that you respect his wishes.
Sincerely,
Jon Goodspeed
6. The defendant's reaction to Mr. Pivar's use of his earlier comments on Mr. Pivar's theories of self-organization were troubling to Mr. Pivar, who expressed his concern to Dr. Hazen in a July 20, 2009 e-mail:
Dear Robert Hazen,
I thank you again for giving my paper such a lengthy and detailed review in 2007, finding it plausible and worthy of further investigation. But now [you] make an about face. Why? I quote your 2007 review:
The following review is of a paper which sets out the premise of On the Origin of Form:
Review: A New Paradigm of Evolution and Development by Stuart Pivar and colleagues
Robert Hazen, Ph.D.
Professor, Carnegie Institute for Science, NASA Institute of Astrobiology"Strengths: To me, the most intriguing and original aspects of this work are the design of the toroidal model and the closely-observed characterizations of the modes of its deformation (for example in Hall et al. manuscript, pages 2-3 and Plate 1). I am not an expert in this area of topology and mechanics, but I'm sure there is a place for a more rigorous mathematical exploration of the relationships among such variables as length, width, viscosity, forces, and resultant segmented morphology. However, even the qualitative presentation is fascinating and seems worthy of publication.
"The extension of the mechanical model to embryo morphogenesis is also intriguing and would seem to bear further study, perhaps with photographic documentation. As drawn in the many fine illustrations, there does appear to be a correspondence between the segmented model forms of Plate 1 of the article and volume to early stages of embryo development. Plate 10 is especially dramatic and has some of the gratifying aesthetic quality typified by the best 19th-century natural history illustration. It would be nice to see corresponding embryo photographs.
"Finally, I am sympathetic to the references to "self-organized structures" as an underlying theme to aspects of embryo development. To me, that phrase implies that individual cells are responding to local (presumably chemical and mechanical) stimuli in their division, shape, apoptosis, etc. This idea makes a lot of sense, and it points to specific experiments that can be performed on developing embryos. After all, if an embryological form can be altered by specific chemical or mechanical stimuli, then we'll gain insight into development. In fact, I suspect that there's a significant literature on exactly this kind of experiment.
"Taken together, these three aspects - the behavior of the mechanical toroid, the observations of early embryonic stages, and the concept of self-organization - might conceivably be woven together more tightly to produce a predictive model of the evolutionary sequence of embryo development. "
Sounds like a pretty good endorsement to me. A predictive model of the evolutionary sequence of embryo development is the holy grail of biology Now you say you never said any of that. I wonder what influenced you to change your mind so radically as to deny your own official statement.
Here is a Rashomon-different version of the events than yours re the Evo-Dinner.
Dimitar sat me next to you because he accepts the plausibilty of the model and thought you would be interested. You were, to the point of writing a review after a month of emails, and were kind enough to recommend it to Drs.Olds and Trefil at George Mason. I wish I had the persuasive powers you give me in inducing you to do something you didn't want to. The entire e-mail exchange is available to see.
Now you have written a new review contradicting the first. You now reject the model out of hand making no reference to the content of the book which includes 57 plates accurately predictive of causative models for a wide variety of morphological phenomena, along with the explanation of differences with observed embryology, a subject I have studied since you were, forgive me, a germ plasm. You say the model is wrong but never say why.
I realize that if this model is correct then much work being done in this field is wrong. If there is no code for form then millions are wasted looking for it. Note that geneticists no longer generally believe that the genes code for form, and biology is still at a loss to explain it. The book presents a form-predictive model of the origin of complex life by self-organization. It has been called plausible by prominent scientists. No one has ever demonstrated that it is wrong, only condemned it out of hand as you have.
In 2007, at the time you wrote the first review, ten NASA astrobiologists, editors of the three peer review journals in astrobiology rejected my model of life origin with bogus, insulting rejections. Now the 33 astrobiologists on the NASA Origin of Life Focus Group each received a copy of the book. Only you responded. The NASA Astrobiology team at SETI each were sent a copy, and may yet respond. The NASA Astrobiology Magazine publishes self-organization models of life origins but refuses to publish this one.
NASA clearly does not want this theory published.
This simple self-organization model seems to inspire extreme reactions. This is not because it is wrong.
Try re-reading it, and then show which part or parts is wrong, and why. That's falsification.
You have not done that. I believe you cannot rise to this simple challenge. If this model cannot be shown false, then the Modern Synthesis may well be wrong, as is now widely believed, and NASA is wasting millions.
I suspect that you and this group of astrobiologists are impelled by extra-scientific motives including the suppression of dissenting ideas by the editorial control of the peer-review process. This is a very serious matter which questions the very integrity of the NASA Astrobiology Institute .
Stuart Pivar
7 On July 19, 2009 the defendant sent an e-mail to Mr. Goodspeed (Complaint Exhibit 4) that was a poisonous, unflattering and inaccurate description of the events of the defendant's relationship and correspondence with Mr. Pivar, which has adversely affected Mr. Pivar's relationship with Mr. Goodspeed and North Atlantic Books, while delaying promotion of Mr. Pivar's book due to the changes necessary in the book's promotional material to accommodate the defendant's request not to use his original, and more favorable, review of Mr. Pivar's work.
Dear Mr. Goodspeed:
This message will serve as a more detailed follow-up to my message from yesterday regarding the unauthorized use of my name in the promotion of "On the Origin of Form, Evolution by Self-Organization" by Stuart Pivar. I wish to review the chronology of events that has led to this point. 1. I first met Mr. Stuart Pivar on November 9, 2006, following the keynote lecture I presented at a celebration marking the start of the new Origin of Life Initiative at Harvard University. Astrophysicist Prof. Dimitar Sasselov was my host, and he sat me next to Mr. Pivar at the dinner that evening. Prof. Sasselov indicated that Mr. Pivar was a potential major donor to the new Harvard program and asked me to be attentive to him and his ideas. To be blunt, Mr. Pivar was extremely unpleasant at this otherwise celebratory dinner. He monopolized my time for more than half an hour during the dinner, alternately describing his theory and berating me for my ignorance on certain aspects of developmental biology and evolution (which are not my fields of expertise). He also insisted that I read his materials (which he would soon thereafter send me) and endorse his new hypothesis.
2. During the following weeks and months I received multiple copies of his writings by FedEx and repeated e-mail and phone call demands that I read and endorse his ideas (more than 50 contacts by his estimate). Pivar's contention has been that it is unethical for scientists to ignore new ideas. I have copies of many of these e-mails if you wish to see them.
3. Reluctantly, and in an effort simply to halt the flood of unpleasant messages, I prepared a rather lengthy, and I had hoped constructive, but ultimately negative review of the Pivar 2006 publication "Biological Structuralism." I did try to emphasize what I thought were interesting (though completely untested) ideas. My review, from January 1, 2007, is attached in its entirety. This review was sent to Mr. Pivar as a personal communication. I hope you will agree that this review, which took most of my New Year's Day in 2007, is neither mean-spirited nor is it uninformed. But it is in no way an endorsement of the Pivar hypothesis, and it raises very serious questions about the scientific and social mechanisms by which Stuart Pivar has been so aggressively pushing his ideas. Again, I did not authorize publication of this review in any form, and I hoped that this effort would end all interactions with him. My e-mail message to him on January 1, 2007, included the following statement: "I think you have made some interesting observations, but you do not have a complete story, and your qualitative ideas certainly cannot yet hope to displace the existing successful, predictive paradigms of natural selection, genetic inheritance, and developmental biology."
4. To my shock and dismay, I learned in July 2007 that Mr. Pivar had excerpted and published selected paragraphs from my long review to make it appear that I somehow endorsed his hypothesis. Of the 5-pages of review that are attached to this e-mail, only the four paragraphs under the heading "strengths" were included. The excerpt appeared as the final page in "The Geometric Origin of Living Form" by Pivar, which was published by Dalton Press in 2007. I quickly wrote Mr. Pivar and insisted that he never excerpt my review and that any use, for example any web posting, must include the entire review. His response was that he did reprint "the full-page science part" but "In the rest you claim ignorance of biology, obviously diminishing the value of what you say." None of my extensive criticisms of his hypothesis were included. In any case, I had hoped that this matter was concluded.
5. Sadly, I now find that my January 1, 2007, personal correspondence reviewing Stuart Pivar's work is still being excerpted on the web site that you cite below, and that my correspondence now being used for promotion of his publications. This repeated quoting of my personal communication out of context is unethical and against my specific demands dating back two years.
8 This July 19th e-mail (Complaint Exhibit 4) to Jon Goodspeed complaining of Mr. Pivar's behavior also contained the following negative review of Mr. Pivar's work:
If you wish to publish my professional and scholarly opinions of Stuart Pivar's work then I offer the following text, which, if you choose to use it, must be printed in its entirety without editing or alteration of any kind. Furthermore, I reserve the right to publish this review in any other venue, including print and web-based media:
Review of "On the Origin of Form: Evolution by Self-Organization" by Stuart Pivar, Published by North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, CA (2009).
ISBN 978-1-55643-886-8
By Robert M. Hazen
Carnegie Institution of Washington
19 July 2009Good science often begins with an original idea; however, new ideas by themselves are not always good science. Nor can one impose new hypotheses on the scientific community without a rigorous, predictive framework buttressed by reproducible observations. The topological model of Stuart Pivar and colleagues, by which self-organizing multi-toroidal surfaces are credited with phenomena spanning the origin and evolution of life, exemplifies such a weak and scientifically unsupported hypothetical construct. In a series of pamphlets and edited compilations, including "Biological Structuralism" (2006), "The Origin of Natural Design" (undated), "The Geometric Origin of Living Form" (2007), and most recently "The Origin of Form" (2009), Pivar and colleagues promote a mechanistic version of morphogenesis based on the properties of a folded multi-torus, while vigorously attacking the prevailing paradigms of morphogenesis through genetic inheritance and natural selection.
Pivar has had ample opportunity to contribute to science by investigating the physics of a folded torus, compared and contrasted with careful imaging studies of actual embryonic development at the cellular scale. In these contexts, Pivar often invokes "self-organization" as the central principal - again a field where new experiments could make useful contributions by documenting the chemical mechanisms by which the supposed toroidal forms might spontaneously arise. However, in Pivar's exposition one finds little of predictive value and no experimental effort to apply rigorous methodology to the problem of multi-cellular morphogenesis. "Evidence" in these volumes appears to consist of recounting qualitative embryological development ideas of the pre-1950 era, amplified by ever more fancifully elaborate and colorful artists' conceptions of elongated "doughnuts" turning into diatoms, or fruit, or all manner of animals from butterflies to babies. This weak illustrative "evidence" presented for Pivar's model is further undermined by attacks on much more rigorously documented paradigms, for example when Pivar calls the Neo-Darwinism "the dogma installed by committee in the 1940s."
New ideas are the lifeblood of science, but most new ideas are wrong. It requires hard work and perseverance to gain a foothold. If there exists some portion of truth in Stuart Pivar's toroidal hypothesis it will take much more than the contents of the present volume to convince the scientific community.
9. The defendant's act of intellectual dishonesty in repudiating his earlier review of Mr. Pivar's work in favor of a more negative one (presumably to save face in the scientific community) has hurt Mr. Pivar's reputation and interfered with his relationship with his publisher and with the promotion of his book. The defendant has also falsely accused Mr. Pivar of using his original review without "permission" and with publishing it on Mr. Pivar's website in excerpts designed to look as if he was endorsing Mr. Pivar's views. Although Mr. Pivar posted the complete review on his website (Complaint Exhibit 5) in good faith for everyone to read, he is now forced to remove it at Dr. Hazen's insistence. In doing this, the defendant has apparently chosen to join the "gated community" of scientists and their journals, like the ones funded by NASA and the Astrobiology Institute, who hide behind "peer review" as a means of discouraging the work of other scientists, whose theories contradict the cherished views of researchers more interested in preserving their financial futures than in advancing the interests of science. 10, As a result of the foregoing an actual controversy exists between the plaintiff and the defendant concerning the right of the plaintiff to publish the defendant's review on the plaintiff's website.
11. The plaintiff has no adequate remedy at law.
WHEREFORE, the plaintiff respectfully requests that the Court enter a Declaratory Judgment:
1. Declaring that the plaintiff has the right to publish the January 1, 2007 review of his work by the defendant on the plaintiff's website.
2. Directing the defendant to stop interfering with the publication and promotion of the plaintiff's book On The Origin of Form with his threats of a lawsuit.
3. Granting the plaintiff such other and further relief, as may be just, with the costs of this action, and reasonable attorney's fees.
Comments
Posted by: gingerbaker | August 13, 2009 10:35 AM
I think Pivar is angling for a new camera.
Posted by: PaleGreenPantsWithNobodyInsideThem | August 13, 2009 10:39 AM
Coincidences are amazing. I just started listening to Haven's lecture on the origins of life on TTC the other day. Then, that night, the History Channel (INTL) had a show starring him talking about the origins of life and now this...all within 3 days.
I think Haven is stalking me.
Posted by: truthspeaker | August 13, 2009 10:39 AM
I don't read a lot of legal briefs, but I can't imagine that many of them contain the phrase "shabby treatment".
Posted by: Tammy | August 13, 2009 10:40 AM
*thinks I hear the sound of a bicycle being pedaled backward*
Posted by: Ryan F Stello | August 13, 2009 10:41 AM
In a lawsuit that's based on an "I said, you said" argument, why would someone want to lead off with an unrelated quote other than to say: I really AM revolutionary!
The entire statement reeks of this paranoia and self-aggrandizement, to the detriment of his case.
I'm not sure what judge would entertain such specious arguments like: In doing this, the defendant has apparently chosen to join the "gated community" of scientists and their journals
Posted by: Richard Eis | August 13, 2009 10:42 AM
So, he used someones name and quote without their permission. I'd get pissy too actually.
Posted by: RBH | August 13, 2009 10:43 AM
I liked this bit from his publisher:
It looks to me like the first phrase about "credibility" is inconsistent with the markets they look to get the book into.Posted by: AJ Milne | August 13, 2009 10:46 AM
Erm... so... I'm to understand he's suing because... someone who said kindish (or perhaps just diplomatic) things in personal correspondance doesn't want to endorse his idea publically?
Erm... okay... so... question for the lawyers present: if, say, I were to send someone off after a none-too-inspiring date with a phrase somethin' like 'Well, hey, you're a nice person... it was fun...', could she later sue me if I didn't sleep with her?
(/Additional question: and if, say, at this very moment my face were in my palm, and my head were shaking, sorta like Picard's in that ubiquitous image macro, could Pivar sue me for that, too?)
Posted by: Sigmund | August 13, 2009 10:51 AM
What a lunatic!
Sounds like his original review was Mooney'd (all the positive bits were taken and published - and all the negative bits completely ignored).
I've read Genesis by Hazen and I'd definitely recommend it to those interested in abiogenesis - although with such a rapidly moving field its already out of date.
Posted by: Standard Curve
|
August 13, 2009 10:52 AM
Wow, that's quite lengthy. I think I can sum it up in a brief concise statement: Wahhhhhhhhhh! Sniff. Sniff.
Posted by: co | August 13, 2009 10:52 AM
Mmm... toroids... *Homer noises*
Posted by: Standard Curve
|
August 13, 2009 10:54 AM
(punctuation fail) -> brief, concise
Posted by: Chris Caprette | August 13, 2009 10:56 AM
AJ Milne (#8): "...could Pivar sue me for that, too?"
IANAL but in the US I think anyone can sue anyone else (possibly even themselves) for anything. I think most lawyers would probably avoid taking the case and most judges would dismess the suit without comment (or perhaps with snark). Or was your question merely rhetorical? :o
Posted by: 4nsicdoc | August 13, 2009 11:01 AM
As someone who prcticed law for 35 years, I am pretty sure this Complaint was not peer reviewed before filing.
Posted by: Tex | August 13, 2009 11:02 AM
If I were the judge, I would return a summary judgement of TLDNR.
Posted by: Dexter M.
|
August 13, 2009 11:02 AM
Essentially, Pivar seems to be saying that if you disagree with his theory and don't give it your support, then you are part of a conspiracy to keep it hidden. It isn't Hazens responsibility to prove his theory wrong, the burden of proof is on Piver to give supporting evidence.
Posted by: AJ Milne | August 13, 2009 11:07 AM
Ummm... maybe...?
(Looks at his lawyer. His lawyer looks thoughtful...)
(/We'll have to get back to you.)
Posted by: Glen Davidson
|
August 13, 2009 11:12 AM
ABS. It's just like with the IDiots, Anything But Science is done in support of this nonsense.
At least Pivar's alienating anyone who he'd still have liked to convince. By now, he could have something as great as relativity, and he'd have a hard time getting any scientists to side with him.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
Posted by: Christophe Thill | August 13, 2009 11:17 AM
Reading his own complaint makes Stuart Pivar appear as a delusional man, someone with no manners, and a stalker. I can't imagine how he could ever succeed in court. I rather expect the judge to mandate him to get into therapy.
Posted by: Anthony | August 13, 2009 11:18 AM
"The motivation for this rejection by the scientific community could best be explained by the inherent bias of peer review scientists who have a financial vested interest, such as research grants and teaching positions, in preserving their pet theories, while rejecting, without honest peer review, the ideas of 'outsiders.'"
Is Pivar not making the same claim that IDists and creationists make?
Posted by: Joel | August 13, 2009 11:21 AM
Moreover, again we hear that the only thing that counts as a "serious review" is one that by and large agrees with the thesis, or which can, at least, be quote-mined to that extent (now where have I heard that before?).
Gosh, that'll be handy to keep in mind for when I write my dissertation!
Posted by: Lynna | August 13, 2009 11:23 AM
If you don't agree with Pivar, he will hassle you with phone calls, emails and faxes. If I request a book blurb or review from someone, and they do not reply, I don't ask again. I certainly don't ask more than 50 times.
Sounds to me like the 50-times qualifies for a restraining order.
Posted by: Monado, FCD | August 13, 2009 11:26 AM
Poor Haven! It seems as if Pivar didn't recognize a diplomatically negative reaction, as in [paraphrase] 'You have supplied something about manipulating toroids. This cries out for experimental verification and actual evidence (which you don't supply).'
The whole brief boils down to, "He said something mean to me and wants to control writing that he has copyright to."
Posted by: dNorrisM | August 13, 2009 11:27 AM
"...rejected my model of life origin with bogus, insulting rejections...."
countersue in the UK
Posted by: Sigmund | August 13, 2009 11:27 AM
Is there any way we can engineer it so that the next time Stuart Pivar needs a dinner partner he's seated next to John Kwok?
Posted by: Stevenb | August 13, 2009 11:29 AM
I noticed a few things about he complaint right away.. though I admit I stopped reading the tedious quoting of email correspondence In the bottom third.
The first sections are rife with unsupported accusations.
"gate keepers more interested in preserving their financial well being than in pursuing real science, "
"no doubt due in part to his concern for his standing in the scientific community"
"an act that can only be described as one of intellectual dishonesty"
I'm also struck by the inference that Journal Editors are not allowed to exercise editorial decisions, at least as long as it's Pivar's work. If we were to the larger argument seriously, any crackpot paper deserves to get published. I see the TimeCube getting a lot of attention again.
Posted by: littlejohn | August 13, 2009 11:32 AM
Uh what? Oh. I'm awake now. I read as much as could stand. He lost me after he apparently asserted that the conventional view is that life was formed from mutations in DNA. Is it Pivar's position that DNA existed before life? WTF? Am I missing something here?
Posted by: Richard Smith | August 13, 2009 11:34 AM
Sounds like one of those obsessive types who, when someone (say, X_) gives them a polite nod of acknowledgement instead of crossing the street to avoid them, decides that X_ has, in fact, expressed their outright admiration of them. As they continue to act upon this perception, any negative response from X_ is considered a betrayal of the most personal sort, requiring swift justice (possibly including camera parts).
For some reason, I'm picturing Quentin Tarantino's character in From Dusk Till Dawn, getting all upset when women go back on what he "imagined" them saying earlier. At least Stuart is channelling his disappointment in a somewhat better direction.
For now...
Posted by: mck9 | August 13, 2009 11:35 AM
How can Pivar possibly expect to get anywhere with an argument like that?
He COMPLETELY neglected to compare himself to Galileo.
Posted by: truthspeaker | August 13, 2009 11:37 AM
You win the thread, sir/ma'am.
Posted by: gruebait | August 13, 2009 11:47 AM
Dammit! First, you said these pants didn't make my ass look big! Then, you told my tailor they do! I'm suing!
Posted by: Lee Brimmicombe-Wood | August 13, 2009 11:47 AM
Oh dear. I just speed-read the whole screed. I know little about law but I'd be surprised if such a complaint stood up in court. It is a pathetic thing.
Posted by: Feynmaniac | August 13, 2009 11:50 AM
On Pivar's book:
Has anyone figured out yet if this Gell-Mann quote was real or if it was indeed referring to Pivar's ideas?
Posted by: Trey | August 13, 2009 11:50 AM
@ #14:
Exactly right. The complaint is terrible and introduces all kinds of detail and conclusions that are not appropriate for notice pleading. It's sad that Pivar was able to find some mercenary who can't write something intelligible.
Posted by: Lee Brimmicombe-Wood | August 13, 2009 11:59 AM
I do not know Pivar but something about his manner suggests he is the kind to force a lawyer to do his bidding regardless of the sense of the thing.
The audience for the complaint is, I suspect, Pivar himself.
Posted by: Randy | August 13, 2009 12:00 PM
Wow... I couldn't bear to finish reading that but that is a special kind of crazy. If you are going to throw out something that loopy, you better expect the beating. It is survival of the fittest when you have an idea like that, and he just threw a blind three legged puppy into the Siberian Tiger habitat and is complaining about the outcome.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | August 13, 2009 12:22 PM
Still reading. . . it's slow going when you have to wade through the crazy:
Fuck the heck? I mean, where do you even begin?
Posted by: Blake Stacey | August 13, 2009 12:28 PM
Feynmaniac (#33),
I don't think anybody knows for sure, but we did find the following in the flap copy for Gell-Mann's The Quark and the Jaguar, which is a fairly good book:
The endorsement on Pivar's book rather resembles the text I have bolded. Shenanigans?
Posted by: Travis | August 13, 2009 12:33 PM
Oh, what do I have to do in order to get sued by Pivar as well? Maybe I should ask for a review copy of his book.
I had totally forgotten about the Gell-Mann quote, I am curious if anyone has contacted him about this. I hope it is another misrepresentation. But maybe it is real, I can see Gell-Mann being someone who attaches himself to a silly idea outside of his field. Quite often I get the idea that he is a crotchy old man who thinks too highly of himself at times. Maybe that is just what I get when I hear him talk about Feynman...
Travis
http://pretendbiologist.blogspot.com
Posted by: Les Lane | August 13, 2009 12:34 PM
When you're rejected by a journal try another. If you're an outsider consult professionals about where to submit. Pivar is hardly the first to have a manuscript rejected. Suing professional scientists is unlikely to endear Pivar to editors.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | August 13, 2009 12:39 PM
Travis (#39):
I found his e-mail address in the Santa Fe Institute directory. Anyone here particularly good at crafting diplomatic messages?
Posted by: Lyle | August 13, 2009 12:49 PM
Did this start out as a story in The Onion?
Posted by: Blake Stacey | August 13, 2009 12:52 PM
Quoting Pivar quoting Hazen:
Yes, they do respond to local chemical stimuli.
In fact, those experiments have already been performed.
Yes, it can, and yes, we have.
Lucky guess! :-/
See, while Hazen seems to have his head screwed on straight, by his own admission he is not qualified to judge work in embryology. Offering an opinion outside of one speciality is not a crime, of course, but one should always keep in mind that it's an uninformed opinion.
Posted by: Glenn | August 13, 2009 12:59 PM
I do not know Pivar but something about his manner suggests he is the kind to force a lawyer to do his bidding regardless of the sense of the thing.
Just to be clear (and I'm a lawyer), no client can "force" a lawyer to do anything. If you think the client has a frivolous case, it's your duty not to file it. And no client would ever get me to write a piece of crap like this complaint.
Having said that, just to explain a bit to non-lawyers: This is solely a declaratory judgment action. If someone threatens to sue you and you feel that they have no basis to do so, you don't have to sit around and wait for them to sue and let them hold it over your head, you can take the initiative and take them to court and ask the court to declare that they have no basis to sue you. From that standpoint, what he's doing here is a perfectly acceptable procedure. The substance of his claim, on the other hand, seems pretty thin. I don't think Hazen has any obligation to allow Pivar to publish his review -- copyright alone would seem to be a problem.
Posted by: TheBlackCat | August 13, 2009 12:59 PM
What I find most amusing about the whole thing is this:
(emphasis added)So, if I am reading this right, Mr. Pivar himself chose these peer-reviewers himself, and then complained about how they were closed-minded when they did not give the answer he liked. Wouldn't he have picked people who were more open-minded? If he picked them he really has no one to blame for his treatment but himself.
Posted by: Daedalus
|
August 13, 2009 1:02 PM
@RBH (#7): It would be advisable for you to do some honest research on osteopathic medicine; I'm confident you will certainly find that you are fundamentally incorrect in labeling it as a widely unsupported, unaccepted form of healthcare.
Regarding Stuart Pivar: The accounts of him presented here really do well overall to portray him as an immature individual milking his alleged victim status. It's unfortunate for Dr. Hazen to be forced to deal with someone like this in this largely unecessary situation.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | August 13, 2009 1:07 PM
Quoth Pivar:
Why would you admit a thing like that? To anybody who knows what kind of mail scientists get, you've just said that 32 of 33 astrobiologists — maybe the ones who'd read Sean Carroll's Endless Forms Most Beautiful or had some other basic background in embryology — recognized the book as crackpot work and tossed it in the circular file.
Because toy balloons were not in plentiful supply on the prebiotic Earth.
Much like the Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society is not eager to publish "proofs" for the squaring of the circle and theorems demonstrating that π = 3.
Ah, yes, the argument from negative reviews: "I touched a nerve, therefore I must be right!"
Posted by: J | August 13, 2009 1:08 PM
My (nonexistent) God: It just keeps going, doesn't it? It's like watching a monkey swallow a hand grenade--horrifying, but still you can't look away.
Posted by: skepsci | August 13, 2009 1:10 PM
My favorite line:
Too funny.Posted by: Lowell | August 13, 2009 1:13 PM
Assuming that New York is the right jurisdiction, NY law has statutes covering this subject. Big surprise: Pivar has no case. Not only that, but Hazen has a cause of action against Pivar under Section 51 of NY's Civil Rights Law.
There are exceptions for literary or artistic endevours that I snipped out. I don't see how those could possibly apply here.
Pivar's an idiot, and if a lawyer helped him with this, he or she should be sanctioned.
Posted by: formosus | August 13, 2009 1:15 PM
Wow. This entire complaint reads like page after page of BAWWWW. "Wahhh, the mean scientists don't listen to me"
Posted by: Charles | August 13, 2009 1:17 PM
Waste of time as far as the legal system is concerned. Looks like a pitifully simple copyright case. Hazen can withdraw rights on his review, and Pivar must yank it. Conspiracy, scientific evidence, all that is irrelevant. Can you say "Dismissed" or "Summary Judgment"?
Is New York one of those states where, when a frivolous lawsuit is filed, the plaintiff's lawyer pays court costs?
Posted by: CJColucci | August 13, 2009 1:20 PM
Who is the lawyer on this piece of crap? Or is there one? Pivar, despite his great wealth, has never been able, to the best of my recollection, to find a lawyer of any stature or consequence to take his money before. And it has shown in the past. Is history repeating itself or is he doing it himself this time?
Posted by: Joffan | August 13, 2009 1:20 PM
Maybe Pivar should get his remarkable thoughts published elsewhere, like, say, in serial form in the Nigerian Farmers Weekly Paper. I'm sure he'd get the appreciation he deserves in outhouses far and wide.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | August 13, 2009 1:22 PM
Suddenly, I'm morbidly curious what Suzan Mazur will make of this. . . .
Posted by: Joe | August 13, 2009 1:26 PM
As an attorney - I agree with #44.
Pivar's not suing Hazen in the traditional sense. He's not trying to get Hazen to pay him. He's essentially forcing Hazen to bring the lawsuit he threatened or let it go.
That said, I don't think the suit should have been brought. I certainly expect and hope that Hazen will win. I don't think Pivar has a moral right to print Hazen's piece. I don't know copyright law much, but I'd imagine whether its fair use or not depends in large part on how much of the review is printed.
Posted by: Oldcola
|
August 13, 2009 1:28 PM
I'm sure Dr Pivar is reading Pharyngula and the comments of this post, so, a personal message:
Dr Pivar, that's pathetic!
Is your aim is to prove that you have really big trouble finding people friendly to your theory, so big that you need kind words even from those who aren't friendly to it. In which case you have a Win. But a pathetic one.
Now, everybody should be inclined to avoid saying anything even remotely positive about your theory, just to avoid dealing with your lawyer some day.
I'm inclined to avoid even reading you, just in case.
And that's a Big Win doc. Your Big Win. Congratulations.
Posted by: J | August 13, 2009 1:29 PM
*Assuming that New York is the right jurisdiction, NY law has statutes covering this subject. Big surprise: Pivar has no case.*
Religious cranks and slapped-together, pro se legal briefs: Two great tastes that go together.
I think the root of the problem is that religifolk think that a "judge" is someone like King Solomon or something and a "court" is just a debating circle (sweetened by the promise of a "big payout") where they can throw down their case and have someone powerful listen to them. The idea that there's, y'know, a *body of laws* that undergird courts and judges doesn't seem to stick with them.
Posted by: Joe | August 13, 2009 1:35 PM
Whoops. He is asking for attorneys fees. My bad.
Posted by: DuckPhup | August 13, 2009 1:36 PM
I read up on Pivar's 'theory'. It could be considerably condensed and simplified if he would just assert that the Creator was a clown... and that all life on earth came into existence as He breathed life into his creations - balloon animals.
Posted by: Darren Garrison | August 13, 2009 1:37 PM
Have you noticed this? Pivar is claiming Stephen Jay Gould as a writer contributing to his book!:
http://www.amazon.com/Origin-Form-Evolution-Self-Organization/dp/1556438869/
Posted by: J | August 13, 2009 1:38 PM
*Religious cranks and slapped-together, pro se legal briefs: Two great tastes that go together.*
Actually, I should amend my statement: ANY sort of crankdom goes hand-in-hand with ridiculous, sloppy lawsuit-filing. Time was when I worked as a law librarian for a firm, we'd get 4-5 of these a week: 20-page, sloppily written letters explaining every wrong that had been done to a person with no discernible cogent timeline but clearly written with great agitation and low intelligence.
I think a certain segment of people have heard enough sixth-hand stories about their brother's dog's cousin's wife's neighbor who filed a claim and got a "big payout" that they think any wad of foolscap they file will result in them living on easy street.
In earlier times and places, these dopes might have satisfied themselves sticking pins into little dolls of their former bosses, spouses, neighborhors, etc.
Posted by: tmaxPA | August 13, 2009 1:39 PM
Paranoia; I feel you creeping through my soul,
Paranoia; I fee you taking complete control,
Paranoia; You got me running all the time,
Paranoia; Oh what a difficult state of mind.
--Klaatu
Posted by: Shaggy Maniac | August 13, 2009 1:40 PM
Pivar: This is not because it is wrong.
It seems that the problem Pivar doesn't see is that his hypothesis is so empty of scientific validity that it is not even wrong.
Posted by: Richard Smith | August 13, 2009 1:46 PM
#62 @J (#62):
I don't know if there's ever been a more aptly-named form of stationery...
Posted by: AdamK | August 13, 2009 2:07 PM
What we need is a strongly-enforced anti-crackpottery statute.
Posted by: Azkyroth | August 13, 2009 2:08 PM
I really hope Pivar doesn't turn out to be a fellow Aspie. :/
Posted by: JM Shep | August 13, 2009 2:08 PM
This whole thing reads like an argument with my roommate (but she won't be my roommate for too much longer!). Perhaps she and Pivar live in the same reality, which is clearly not the reality we all share.
@#36
This _is_ a special kind of crazy (clearly one my roommate has...). After dealing with her, the whole post was a pretty easy read.
(Sorry for all the roommate bashing, but they're just so similar!)
Posted by: Les Lane | August 13, 2009 2:09 PM
Commentary of Pivar's previous lawsuit for your entertainment.
Pivar apparently aspires to being recognized as a polymath, but appears to be at risk of becoming a polycrank.
Posted by: Azkyroth | August 13, 2009 2:15 PM
PS: Someone tell Dr. Hazen that he should countersue and ask for, as a declaratory judgement, the entire court to point and laugh at Pivar.
Posted by: Stuart Pivar | August 13, 2009 2:23 PM
Dear PZ,
Thank you for coming through once again.
This was posted in Auf wiedersehen, Lindau! on July 6, 2009 1:04 PM but is relevant now.
Balloon Biology,
Don't deprecate balloons, as you yourself are one, as we all are, according to the great embryologist Adolph Seilacher at Yale, who established by tensorial analysis in his Pneu theory in the 1980s that the curvature of the arthropod shell and vertebrate body is consistent with that of an inflated balloon. Every cell is a balloon.
The body is an inflatable. This characteristic distinguishes living form from the inorganic. Crystals have flat surfaces and sharp edges.
In the 1880's Swiss scientist Wilhelm His, father of human embryology, inventor of the microtome, simulated the steps of embryology and the form of the vertebrate internal organs by the deformation of inflated rubber bladders and tubes. His work was ridiculed by Ernst Haeckel as Gummischlauchwissenschaft, rubber balloon science. It was His who exposed Haeckel's embryo drawings as fraudulent. Haeckle destroyed the Swiss Entwicklungsmechanik school of embryology by preventing its members from publishing and teaching in Germany.
Embryogenesis is guided by the fluid dynamics of inflating balloons. Gould recounts all this in Ontogeny and Philogeny, 1977.
We are all inflatables, some of us more than others.
Remember, it was Haeckel who invented the term Pharyngula.
Posted by: Dave C | August 13, 2009 2:32 PM
*grabs some popcorn*
Posted by: Cogito | August 13, 2009 2:33 PM
Ooooh the man himself! This should be interesting!
Posted by: Cogito | August 13, 2009 2:36 PM
"The body is an inflatable. This characteristic distinguishes living form from the inorganic."
Oh joy, christmas came early this year! Please don't scare him away, I want more of his insanity!
Posted by: Ginger Yellow | August 13, 2009 2:41 PM
"The body is an inflatable. This characteristic distinguishes living form from the inorganic"
So, balloons and lifejackets are alive?
Posted by: Capital Dan
|
August 13, 2009 2:42 PM
Really, PZ. It's hard to pick the funniest thing you've ever said on this blog, but I have to say the balloon animals thing was right up there toward the top.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | August 13, 2009 2:43 PM
"Ballard (1981) coined the term "pharyngula" to refer to the embryo that has developed to the phyolotypic stage, when it posesses the classic vertebrate bauplan."
Posted by: Masks of Eris | August 13, 2009 2:44 PM
I can just imagine the face of a judge reading this, his eyebrows rising ever higher... until at the words "self-congratulatory club of gate keepers" they pop and fall off.
Posted by: dinkum | August 13, 2009 2:44 PM
Is this the part where the ten-legged spiders come out of the walls? I hate this part.
Posted by: Dave C | August 13, 2009 2:46 PM
Re: #77
What's eighty some odd years between friends, anyway?
Posted by: Brownian, Most Vicious & Petty of Pharyngulites
|
August 13, 2009 2:50 PM
Flat surfaces and sharp edges are not the opposite of inflatable nor are they mutually exclusive. That's some serious question-begging.
Haeckel heckled His and His hosed Haeckel's hackery, therefore Pivar=true?!
What kind of fallacious, circular, and question-begging bullshit is this? Is this what you think passes for thinking? This is what you expect is going to revolutionise the world? The very fact that you posted such tripe as if it were meaningful tells us you're no scientist, or at the best a very bad one, Pivar. I've graded papers with more cogent reasoning by first year students.
Go find a job you're actually qualified for.
Posted by: Gyeong Hwa Pak | August 13, 2009 2:50 PM
"The body is an inflatable. This characteristic distinguishes living form from the inorganic"
So if I am understanding this statement right, you can argue that Jigglypuff exist because it's body is inflatable or that living things are like Jigglypuff!?. huh...
Posted by: Sanction | August 13, 2009 2:54 PM
Yep. And if a lawyer files a frivolous lawsuit anyway, he or she is subject to sanctions. Pissed-off judge, some money out of the checking account, possible referral to the office of professional responsibility... it's bad.
Despite my name, I have not been sanctioned. Yet.
Posted by: Zar | August 13, 2009 2:54 PM
In addition to the possibly made up, misinterpreted analogy Pivar presents as proof above, I give you the fine outer-space documentary Phantom Planet (as featured on MST3K) that provides additional credence to the idea of inflatable people.
Posted by: The Rev | August 13, 2009 2:57 PM
I had nearly forgotten that Pivar the crackpot is also the maniac who filled balloons with honey and water (to test differential viscosities), and squeezed them into animal like shapes, proclaiming "Voila! I am now an embryologist!".
Embryos: pretty much the same as squeezey balloons.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | August 13, 2009 2:58 PM
William Ballard, "Morphogenetic Movements and Fate Maps of Vertebrates" American Zoologist Vol. 21, No. 2 (1981), pp. 391–99. [JSTOR]
Probably not the earliest use of the word in print, but still.
Posted by: Monado | August 13, 2009 3:00 PM
Did Mr. Pivar consult a lawyer to vet this? Or is he aspiring to graduate from classic crackpot to perennial laughing-stock with a side order of barratry?
Posted by: Dave C | August 13, 2009 3:00 PM
I think the notion of inflatability as the key distinguishing feature of life shows great promise. I mean, think of how much easier the textbooks would be to write and draw once we get rid of things like metabolism, homeostasis, heritability, etc!
Posted by: Les Lane | August 13, 2009 3:01 PM
Just discovered the appropriate journal for Pivar.
Posted by: SC, OM | August 13, 2009 3:06 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R09fp9rx5-o
Posted by: Blake Stacey | August 13, 2009 3:06 PM
D'oh! Phantom Planet! I should have remembered that one. Good call.
Posted by: Josh S, Official SpokesGay | August 13, 2009 3:08 PM
Does anyone have a pin? Just askin', since Dr. Pivar needs a place to sit down.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | August 13, 2009 3:16 PM
From Jane Oppenheimer's review of Ballard's Comparative Anatomy and Embryology (1964), in The Quarterly Review of Biology Vol. 40., No. 4 (Dec. 1965), pp. 368–70 [JSTOR].
Posted by: Ken Cope | August 13, 2009 3:20 PM
Does anyone have a pin?
Why must everybody behave like such pricks? Pins aren't popular in Balloon Land.
Beware the Pincushion Man.
Posted by: Azkyroth | August 13, 2009 3:23 PM
[Insert realdoll joke here]
Posted by: Richard Smith | August 13, 2009 3:26 PM
Stuart Pivar's ego is very much alive, and distinguishing itself from the inorganic more and more each moment.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | August 13, 2009 3:36 PM
Incidentally, the identification of Ballard as the coiner of the term pharyngula can be found by the laborious technique of (a) looking in Wikipedia or (b) clicking the words "pharyngula stage embryo" in the left-hand column of this blog. The rest is all our good friend Google Scholar.
Posted by: handthatbites | August 13, 2009 3:54 PM
@25-Thanks for completing the circle of irony
Kwok+Pivar=P-Wok
Social barbarians, filled with paranoia, and delusions of grandeur.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself | August 13, 2009 4:00 PM
From Pivar's complaint:
This fact is not factual.
Posted by: Greg | August 13, 2009 4:06 PM
@ #14 & #34
I'm presuming he's representing himself with no actual legal advice. I am not a professional lawyer but I do have a law degree and have dealt with many such documents and that one is easily the most laughable, poorly written, delusional crap I've ever seen. I could do better myself, but of course I have a small shred of sense and would get a real grown up lawyer to do it for me.
The court finds Stuart Pivar to be in Contempt of Reality. I am issuing an order compelling Stuart Pivar to stay at least 100m the fuck away from everybody else and to stop using all electronic means of communication. As well as postal services, just to be on the safe side.
Loon dismissed.
Posted by: Draken | August 13, 2009 4:13 PM
And thus, the Supreme Court of the State of New York became the first to have indictments written in Comic Sans and with a Gumby in the letterhead.
Posted by: Emily | August 13, 2009 4:23 PM
@95
'RealDoll' joke, courtesy of Mr Tim Minchin:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6raVzrbqrM
Enjoy :-)
Posted by: Aquaria | August 13, 2009 4:31 PM
Why, oh why, can't delusional twits like Pivar get fixated on Ken Ham or his ilk?
IANAL, but I did make ends meet here and there with legal secretarial work before my exciting and lucrative career in the USPS.
Anyway I typed up a lot of legal documents, and Pivar's is the craziest I've seen. That takes some doing since I'm from Texas.
I am damned sure he didn't get a lawyer to draft this for him (if this is the entire declaration). Sanction and others have pointed out up thread that this doc isn't a lawsuit. It's sort of the tapdance stuff that comes before a lawsuit, the bullshit kitchen sink dominance game maneuverings to intimidate someone into doing what the client wants. It's burying people in legal bullshit, a Jarndyce & Jarndyce for rich people with more money than sense. It can work; some people get tired of dealing with the whole sorry thing and do whatever it takes to get the harassment to end.
Posted by: Stacey C. | August 13, 2009 4:35 PM
Okay, the quote from the Prof. at Mt. Holyoke has been driving me nuts because I live in the area and graduated from Smith. I just looked up his description on the website and among other things he believes that the Carthaginians were the first people to 'discover' the new world. His proof? A tiny, squished map on the bottom of a coin. SO...the WOO is strong with this one too! http://www.mtholyoke.edu/offices/comm/vista/9606/4.html
Posted by: Steve_C | August 13, 2009 4:39 PM
Well this shows one thing for sure. Pivar is a rich prick. The who part about Hazen humoring the kook at a party so he'd donate money to Harvard is very telling.
Posted by: Smidgy | August 13, 2009 4:41 PM
Sorry, but, to me, translated from legalese into English, this is:
'I want the court to grant me the right to quote-mine Robert M. Hazen in order to sell my book.'
Posted by: Ring Tailed Lemurian | August 13, 2009 4:44 PM
Stop mocking Mr Pivar, you jealous meanies. He's a unrecognised genius, and here he is, proving his theory beyond doubt -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJJQ42fvpaY
1min 35 secs "Later on we're going to make different animals, just by changing the size of the bubbles" See?
Posted by: Steve_C | August 13, 2009 4:45 PM
Well this shows one thing for sure. Pivar is a rich prick. The who part about Hazen humoring the kook at a party so he'd donate money to Harvard is very telling.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | August 13, 2009 4:48 PM
Aquaria asked,
Oh, they do. People mired in a common delusion can be quite entertaining when they differ on the details. For example, the "premillennial dispensationalist" loonies who go around claiming that we're living in the End Times Foretold by Revelation (TM) go after each others' throats on whether the Antichrist's treaty with Israel will last 18 or 42 months. Young Earth Creationists insist that Old Earth or Intelligent Design Creationists destroy the foundations of Christianity by accepting that the Earth is "millions of years" old. It's a grand spectacle which in most cases is fortunately easy to ignore.
Posted by: Just Sayin' | August 13, 2009 4:56 PM
If nothing else, Pivar would be wildly popular on DeviantART, as that place is swarming with freaks with an inflation fetish.
Posted by: slpage | August 13, 2009 5:02 PM
Doing a little digging on Pivar's claims, I came across
this shocking endorsement/preface to Pivar's latest book from one Mark McMenamin - a geology professor - :
"...Stuart Pivar’s book, On the Origin of Form (2009), contains ideas that deserve full scientific scrutiny, especially in light of the turmoil roiling evolutionary biology at present. Pivar is presenting, in a series of brilliantly rendered graphical diagrams that show his interpretation of how modifications of a torus shape can generate a vast panoply of biotic form, a new theory of morphogenesis. Some conventionally oriented evolutionary biologists will feel threatened by this new perspective. Genes can no longer be seen as some kind of self-sufficient blueprint for metazoan organization. Rather, morphogenetic field analysis is needed to understand the morphology and ontogeny of a variety of creatures...."
I wrote the following response to him, but decided not to send it:
Dear Dr.McMenamin,
Did you really write this:
"Stuart Pivar’s book, On the Origin of Form, contains ideas that deserve full scientific scrutiny, especially in light of the turmoil roiling evolutionary biology at present. Pivar is presenting, in a series of brilliantly rendered graphical diagrams that show his interpretation of how modifications of a torus shape can generate a vast panoply of biotic form, a new theory of morphogenesis.... This is a seismic event for science. Conventional evolutionary biologists are right to be very worried about this, because it has the potential to trigger the complete collapse of Modern Synthesis Biology."
If so, I might suggest a primer on embryological development - and you might then recommend the same to Pivar.
I teach embryology and have actually observed the formation of a chicken embryo, and it looks nothing at all like what is depicted in Pivar's book (which might explain why these things might look "unfamiliar" to embryologists).
http://www.ontheoriginofform.com/images/plate03.htm
The vertebrate/human embryo does NOT start as a sphere or a cylinder; the gut tube does NOT start by the fusion of invaginations on opposite ends of this non-existent sphere; limbs do NOT form from wrinkles in the bent torus; etc. This is basic, well understood science.
The real reason that biologists do not and should not take Pivar's claims seriously is because the evidence not only does not support them, it, in fact, falsifies it.
Observe, for example, limb formation in the bat:
http://embryology.med.unsw.edu.au/Otheremb/bat2.htm
No digits are seen on the early limb buds, as Pivar's model seems to require.
My only concern is that people will take Pivar seriously, and unwise endorsements like your's are partly to blame.
Posted by: Christopher Sisk | August 13, 2009 5:06 PM
Very sad... Hazen is an amazing instructor and writer. I hope this turns out well.
Posted by: Haruhiist | August 13, 2009 5:29 PM
Obviously Pivar is very much right in saying this.
I mean, the easiest way to notice Pivar is alive, is to see that he is full of hot air.
Posted by: MadScientist | August 13, 2009 5:55 PM
Hahaha! Hey, if you can't get people to believe your stupid ideas, try to get the courts to decide what's science. This is one up on "press release science".
The complaint is such a load of loony I don't see that it could get past the Registrar. It's even more looney than the DI's whining long-winded empty court filing which in which it was asking the court to bypass other government offices and order that some course of theirs be accredited for a PhD or some such thing.
Posted by: noodles | August 13, 2009 6:09 PM
Ha! Premillennial Dispensationalists? They are girlscouts compared to Postmillennial Dispensationalists (i.e., Dominionists). While the Pre-Ds are bunkered in Montana cleaning their guns, the Post-Ds are busy infiltrating your local school board and state legislature.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_theology
Posted by: Alan Kellogg | August 13, 2009 7:06 PM
Mr. Pivar,
Round is simply the most cost effective way of enclosing a non-rigid mass. Any other way requires special structures for bracing and support that add to the cost. Muscles and organs have no real structural integrity of their own to speak of, and so require a container to keep them in shape. Animals use a combination of an integument (skin) plus muscles under tension---sometimes with the aid of a skeletal system. For an example of what happens when this system breaks down see the case of the typical extremely obese person.
Posted by: Monado, FCD | August 13, 2009 7:42 PM
How does Pivar get away with claiming Stephen Jay Gould as a contributor for a book published in 2009, when Gould died in 2002 and was an evolutionary biologist, not an embryologist?
Posted by: Monado, FCD | August 13, 2009 7:45 PM
Also, Pivar is invoking financial interest on the part of everyone but himself, who has a direct financial interest in promoting sales of his book.
Posted by: peter irons | August 13, 2009 7:55 PM
It looks like Pivar is reading this thread, so he might remember me as the lawyer who helped PZ force Pivar to withdraw the $15 million (not a typo) suit he filed against PZ for calling him a "crackpot" (truth is an absolute defense in libel cases). Question for Pivar: did you find a real lawyer to draft and file this complaint, and, if so, who? Or did you file it pro se? If you did find a lawyer (Michael Little again?), I'll draft a complaint for Hazen to the NY Bar and NY Supreme Court, seeking sanctions for filing a frivolous suit. Please answer this question; I can hardly wait to get started.
Peter Irons, Esq.
Posted by: JoshS, Official SpokeGay | August 13, 2009 8:11 PM
Oh yeah, Peter Irons is here! It's on, bitches. It's on.
Posted by: Lynna | August 13, 2009 8:21 PM
Peter Irons @119 gives me hope. "Frivolous" is exactly the right description. Carry on Mr. Irons, Esquire.
Posted by: Lynna | August 13, 2009 8:35 PM
PZ, do you have an email address for Robert Hazen, one where he wouldn't mind receiving letters of support from strangers?
I hope you forwarded to Mr. Hazen the comment above by Peter Irons.
Posted by: RBH | August 13, 2009 8:35 PM
Daedalus wrote
Perhaps I was too cryptic. The publisher claimed to provide credibility, and then immediately identified a range of markets (altie meds on the one end, osteopathy on the other) so wide as to erode that credibility.Posted by: DLC | August 13, 2009 9:35 PM
Perhaps Mr Pivar would settle for a balloon full of tang ?
Hey... the astronauts can't all be wrong, it forms into a sphere in micro-grav!
Oh, and.. no one referred to The hollow men yet.
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
>>> T.S Eliot.
Headpiece filled with straw seems to describe someone mentioned previously here.
Posted by: John the Skeptic | August 13, 2009 9:40 PM
I'd be very surprised to learn that this was not filed pro se. Even a lousy lawyer should be able to keep the paragraph numbering correct.
Posted by: Azkyroth | August 13, 2009 9:42 PM
As near as I can tell, osteopathy seems to be the astronomy to chiropractic's astrology.
Posted by: Religion™ Brand Brain Staples | August 13, 2009 10:34 PM
I have only one thing to say to Pivar:
Come back when you can inflate a fucking TREE.
*grumbles* Inflatability... crackpots these days... *grumble grumble*
Posted by: Stuart Pivar | August 14, 2009 10:50 AM
Dear PZ and other Embryologists,
Yes, indeed I know that the drawings don't resemble observed embryology. That is the whole point of On the Origin of Form, made clear at the beginning.
Page XV, the third page of the exposition, says:
"Biologists quickly see that the predicted models of the torus theory do not correspond with the microscopic examination of the well known steps in the growth and development of the embryo. According to the theory of recapitulation evolution works by continually adding new stages to the end of the sequence of embryological development as the organism becomes more and more complex. Since the time alloted for embryological development remains short and constant, the adding of new end stages causes the initial stages of the ancestral predecessors of today's species to be compressed and pressed backwards until the ancient initial stages disappear entirely, leaving only the final stages for us to observe, much like seeing the last few frames of a movie. This complex subject is elaborated in a later chapter by the reprinting of excerpts form Stephen Jay Gould's Ontogeny and Phylogeny(1977)"
Steve Gould inscribed my copy saying" Stuart, thanks for wrestling with my "real" book."
More on balloon biology: in addition to Wilhelm His and Adolph Seilacher, per my comment posted above, see the 100 pages of chapter 5 of Darcy Thompson On Growth and Form which describe life forms as inflated surfaces by balloon geometry.
The drawings in On the Origin of Form are hypothetical reconstructions of missing early stages. You might try reading it.
Posted by: JBlilie | August 14, 2009 10:51 AM
I guess this guy has never heard of nuclear DNA transfer ...
Posted by: JBlilie | August 14, 2009 10:53 AM
I guess this guy has never heard of nuclear DNA transfer ...
Posted by: 4nsicdoc | August 14, 2009 11:23 AM
@44 and 56.
You both have made a point which bears expansion.A Declaratory Judgment action is one that was historically litigated in Chancery, as opposed to the Common Law Courts of England. The judges in chancery, called Chancellors (how novel) were not appointed by the King or either House. They were appointed by the an ArchBishop, usually the one in Canterbury.. This branch of law was called equity, and was based in ecclesiastic law. If you didn't have a claim cognizable at common law, like Piven's, you could ask the Chancellor to ignore the common law, and just "do right." Equitable actions included ones like actions for declaratory judgment
"Please just say it ain't so."); Replevin ("Gimme my stuff back."); Divorce; and Actions for Unjust Enrichment
(It ain't fair he made money using my ideas or stuff.
New York still divides its courts into equity and law.
New York does have what is called Rule 11, which allows the judge to sanction either or both of the client with a totally frivilous claim and/or the lawyer who advances it.
Is anyone else struck by the feeling that the complaint is just a proffered example of irreducible complexity?
Defending junk actions like this one is why, after 35 years of practicing law (and equity), when I suffered a traumatic head injury at the hands (hooves) of an eq1uine, I decided to change careers and do something honest. I could have become an insurance salesman but, instead, got a PhD in Forensic Chemistry.
Re the injury, never, ever, try to ride anything that can run faster than it can think!
)
Posted by: Blake Stacey | August 14, 2009 11:48 AM
Peter Irons (#119):
I think Peter Irons should be played by Jeremy Irons in the movie. :-)
Posted by: Olorin | August 14, 2009 12:23 PM
Nothing new under the sun.
This situation is reminiscent of Alfred Russel Wallace's defenses against libel suits brought by flat-earther John Hampden in the 1870s. Over most of a decade, Hampden's suits were lost, he was fined and jailed several times. But he wouldn't quit.
Sounds familiar.
Posted by: peter irons | August 14, 2009 12:29 PM
Stuart, I see you're still reading this comment thread. So let me repeat two questions: have you actually filed suit against Hazen and, if so, who's your lawyer?
To Blake Stacey: I'm flattered that you suggest that Jeremy Irons should play me in the movie. He's actually a distant relative from the same place in northern England.
Posted by: Olorin | August 14, 2009 12:30 PM
"The premise of Mr. Pivar's theory, briefly stated, is that the body form of any species is encoded not in the DNA but in the patterned structure of the primordial germ plasm - the universal predecessor of the egg."
So how does Mr. Pivar's theory differ from the medieval homunculus theory?
Posted by: Stephen P | August 14, 2009 1:37 PM
Stuart Pivar:
So you claim that after the tiger foetus developed into something resembling an adult tiger, as shown in your drawings, it then reverted to a blastula? Does that make the slightest sense even to you?
On the present evidence that would be a complete waste of time.
Posted by: stuart pivar | August 14, 2009 1:39 PM
Olorin;
The Homunculus theory of the late seventeenth century
is based on the tiny man the first microscopists thought they saw in sperm and eggs. You might say that the empatterned germ plasm membrane encodes a homunculus.
You forgot about Spontaneous Generation. All this stuff is explained in the book which none of the commenters seem to have seen. None have commented on its scientific content, or on the serious charges the complaint alleges.
Hazens 2007 enthusiastic endorsement spells it out. What made him change his mind and replace it with a more PZ type of review? Could he have been seen staggering out of NASA headquarters covered with bruises?
Posted by: TheBlackCat | August 14, 2009 1:58 PM
@ Stuart Pivar: Even if you are right and he changed his mind it doesn't change the fact that you cannot use someone else's name and work without permission. Add to that the fact that, according to Hazen, you quoted a very small part of an overall bad review to make it seem like a good review. Your complaint does not dispute this assertion. Although that does not appear to be illegal in New York (although I think it is in some cases in the EU), it is certainly unethical. So all in all Hazen's complaint seems valid and your complaint does nothing to dispute this. If someone took my words and twisted them to make it seem like I was saying the exact opposite of what I actually said, which Hazen claims is the case and you do not seem to dispute, then I would be upset as well.
But in the end Hazen's motives are irrelevant, by U.S. copyright law he owns the copyright to the review and you cannot use it without permission. According to the posters here, in New York you cannot use someone's name without permission, either, at least not for advertising purposes. Your arguments regarding what you imagine his motives to be do not change anything.
Posted by: Les Lane | August 14, 2009 2:51 PM
Perhaps he talked with developmental biologists. I'd recommend talking with relevant professionals to anyone who wishes to publish developmental biology.Posted by: peter irons | August 14, 2009 2:54 PM
Has anyone noticed that Pivar still refuses to answer two very reasonable questions: Has he actually filed suit against Hazen, and if so, who is his lawyer?
His silence leads me to two conclusions: He hasn't filed the complaint, and doesn't intend to; it's just a bluff, and Hazen has no reason to be concerned; and Pivar (who obviously drafted the complaint himself) couldn't find a lawyer dumb enough to file it, and face sanctions for filing a frivolous suit.
I have contacted the book's distributor, suggesting they withdraw from any further distribution, particularly because Pivar used a phony "blurb" from Murray Gell-Mann, who obviously never authorized Pivar to use the endorsement attributed to him. Bad form, Stuart.
Posted by: Morgan-LynnGriggs Lamberth | August 14, 2009 3:31 PM
So, Pivar is an evolutionist who is acting as a cretin creationist with his lack of peer-reviewed material!
Posted by: william e emba | August 14, 2009 3:54 PM
I'd just like to put in a quick comment about North Atlantic Books. They are the publishers of the collected short stories of Theodore Sturgeon, with the last volume to appear later this month. I've been a happy customer, getting them in hardcover as they come out, and just astonished at how magnificent TS's writing really was.
The rest of what they publish, however, seems to be nothing but complete utter crap. (I haven't looked in a long time, however, one waste of time was enough.) Seeing North Atlantic's name pop up as Pivar's publisher really made me smile.
Posted by: gr8hands | August 14, 2009 4:36 PM
If Pivar says that Hazen is not a qualified reviewer, why would he seek or accept a review by Hazen?
Pivar is also wrong about the homonculus theory being the result of mistakes by microscopists. (A little research shows that Hartsoeker never claimed to have seen them with his microscope, but only postulated their existence -- this is further evidence of Pivar's scientific researching failures.)
Pivar is also wrong when he says "None have commented on its scientific content" -- many people have commented that it obviously has NO scientific content.
Poor Pivar. Too bad he can't sue everybody that disagrees with him.
Posted by: Monado, FCD | August 14, 2009 5:47 PM
Guys, I made a product correction on Amazon suggesting that Stephen Jay Gould be removed as co-author since he died in 2002 (supporting web link to his biography). At the time there were no customer reviews. When I went back today to see if the change had been made, I found a review by white-hatted lawyer ***Peter Irons***, warning people about Pivar's habit of flinging lawsuits and mentioning the quote-mined Gell-Mann blurb. It's here, along with a counter-review from a contrarian.
Posted by: cyan | August 14, 2009 6:52 PM
Pivar,
What testable hypotheses do you have for your idea?
And what would falsify your idea?
Posted by: co | August 14, 2009 7:13 PM
Reality.
Posted by: stuart pivar | August 14, 2009 7:53 PM
cyan
good question, finally.
The "idea" is a systematic hypothesis like the periodic table of the elements. It is a topological algorithm which demonstrates that the body plans of each of the multi-cellular phyla can be accurately simulated by the deformation of a single topological figure, the multi-torus.
Brian Goodwin called it an important contribution to taxonomy.
Falsification can consist of the demonstration that one of the animal phyla cannot be derived from this source. No one has ever falsified the premise.
The success of the algorithm is beyond coincidence as is the periodic table, that one must suspect that nature is using this mechanism, much as the atomic model of Rutherford and Niels Bohr derives from Mendeleef's table.
The model is the only causative, coherent model of morphogenesis ever proposed. It has been ridiculed by the biologically illiterate but never refuted.
NB> Murray Gell Man has visited my lab three or four times in the past year, has read the book and compared it to the statement on the cover of his own book, contrary to the sick imaginings of detractors who have never even seen the book.
Posted by: peter irons | August 14, 2009 8:32 PM
Pivar still hasn't answered my questions about his suit against Hazen, probably because there won't be any suit.
The fact that he can't spell Gell-Mann's name correctly says something. One thing I know from my own experience is that reputable publishers demand some evidence (letters or e-mails) that "blurbers" have authorized the use of quotes attributed to them; mine always have. That protects publishers from unpleasant and potentially damaging incidents like this. I think it's fair to ask Pivar to produce this evidence, not just his word for it. We already know of Pivar's fabrication of an endorsement by Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Posted by: SimonC | August 14, 2009 8:43 PM
Mr Pivar,
Your enthusiasm for your idea is admirable. Unfortunately it is also misguided. When reality keeps slapping you in the face it is best to back down and accept what is real.
Seriously, do you need these faux endorsements for your idea, or will it stand on it's own strengths? Fighting in courts to force someone to your way of thinking is the mark of a crackpot, promoting an idea just because you thought it first. Remember, novelty isn't a measure of anything: just because you thought it first doesn't make it true.
Reality is the touchstone for truth, and science is the truest way of measuring and describing reality. Sir, show us the science and we will all fall behind you as supporters of your idea.
Science first though: provide proof. Can you show us these toroids? Even one? No? ... When you do, I would be fascinated and a devoted supporter. As of now, however, you appear to be a promoter of some form of chicanery, tricking people into believing that which is not. Please show the science so I may test your theories at home. I want Science to apply it's hand evenly, wherever I live.
Posted by: Ichthyic | August 14, 2009 8:47 PM
Falsification can consist of the demonstration that one of the animal phyla cannot be derived from this source.
and if all animal phyla can be readily derived from alternative sources?
what then?
your concept is nothing more than a post-hoc inane fit measure.
kind of like classifying organisms based on how "orange" they are.
Posted by: Physicalist | August 14, 2009 9:13 PM
Pivar:
What possible bodies (i.e. what shapes) could NOT be simulated by the deformation of a multi-torus? That is, what is ruled out by your hypothesis?
If (as I suspect) nearly any shape can be simulated in this way, then it seems your hypothesis is devoid of explanatory power.
Posted by: peter irons | August 14, 2009 9:24 PM
Anyone who wants to send an e-mail to Pivar (maybe attaching a 500-page manuscript with a request for an endorsement) can reach him at spivar@aol.com. The address is not a secret; it's on public records. I'm sure he'll respond quickly to all inquiries.
Posted by: Lynna | August 14, 2009 10:12 PM
Yes. My experience is the same. I have never used a blurb or even a review without written consent. I send the commenter the text exactly as it will appear on book covers, online, or within printed materials; and I ask for their approval.
This procedure applies even to informal emails from acquaintances. If you're going to print is, or display it online, you need written permission to use the quote.
Posted by: Travis | August 14, 2009 10:21 PM
I was wondering when Peter Irons was going to show up. Well, I was hoping you would at least, I remembered the last Pivar scene and quite enjoyed reading what you wrote and what you had done for PZ and was hoping for more of the same. However this time it seems unneeded, this is even more pathetic than the last suit.
Travis
http://pretendbiologist.blogspot.com
Posted by: Religion™ Brand Brain Staples | August 14, 2009 11:03 PM
Still waiting for Pivar to back up his statement:
Didn't have much luck hooking up a tree to a bicycle pump, eh? Unless you wish to content that they are not living, retract this statement.
You continue to talk nonsense, and have no idea what you are talking about. Go away and find something more productive to do with your time (and money for that matter) than suing people for standing up to your obviously illegal actions.
Posted by: cyan | August 14, 2009 11:32 PM
Pivar:
thank you for identifying those questions as being ones which to you are valid, as well as to me
from you:
"The "idea" is a systematic hypothesis like the periodic table of the elements. It is a topological algorithm which demonstrates that the body plans of each of the multi-cellular phyla can be accurately simulated by the deformation of a single topological figure, the multi-torus."
I appreciate the elegance of that logic.
However, the basis of a scientific hypothesis should be an observed phenomenon, not a mathematical concept (that could be viewed as a potential conclusion). But: is the multi-torus an observed phenomenom?
The reason I ask this is that scientific methodology tries to explain observed phenomena via the most parsimonious explanation from an actual observational starting point, rather than using the elegance of mathematics as the starting point, then trying to fit observational data into that elegance. (The real elegance of mathematics is how closely it has so far followed the observed phenomena, not vice-versa).
Observational data is the reality; mathematics is the pattern we have inferred from all previous data. Mathematics have been beautiful in interpreting the data and then predicting from that integration. But trying to make observational data fit the mathematical model, rather than vice-versa, is not useful, although elegant.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | August 14, 2009 11:35 PM
No, it's not. Mendeleev's original periodic table had predictive power. Instead of merely being a post-hoc fit to cherry-picked scraps of qualitative data, Mendeleev's work predicted new elements and what their properties would be.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | August 14, 2009 11:58 PM
And the body plans of each phylum can be drawn in Photoshop and saved as JPEG files, but that doesn't mean the JPEG compression algorithm has anything to do with morphogenesis or the origin of the metazoan phyla. The statement that a shape is topologically equivalent to a shape to which it is topologically equivalent is not particularly impressive either.
Posted by: Stephen P | August 15, 2009 2:38 AM
I see that Stuart Pivar is still posting, so I will make another attempt. Does your statement:
mean that after the tiger foetus developed into something resembling an adult tiger, as shown in your drawings, it then reverted to a blastula? And that the stages you draw have subsequently disappeared, but the blastula phase remains?
And if not, what do you mean? What is the relationship of your drawings to the embryology that can actually be observed?
Posted by: stuart pivar | August 15, 2009 8:30 AM
Stephen P
Glad to continue this feast of reason.
I answered your reasonable question in comment #128 above
The drawings reconstitute the initial ancient stages of embryogenesis,lost by the process of Condensation. Evolution works by adding at the end and deleting from the beginning.This is the subject of Steve Gould's Ontogeny and Phylogeny (1977), a bible of embryology.
Notice how in their inability to refute the scientific issues, the amateur science critics resort to ridicule and impotent rage, typical behavior set down over centuries.
Your question suggests that you have not read my book any more than have any of the other conferees.
see www.ontheoriginofform.com
Posted by: PZ Myers
|
August 15, 2009 8:40 AM
No, it does not. There are no direct physical constraints on when change can occur in the developmental process.
No, it is not. Gould discussed several modes of change. How could you miss all the stuff on heterochrony? Did you just not understand it?
I very much like O&P, but it is more a book on the history of science. It is definitely not a bible of embryology -- most development courses will not refer to it at all.
Posted by: Stuart Pivar | August 15, 2009 9:55 AM
PZ,
Thanx for your comments. Indeed I am very familiar with Ontogeny and Phylogeny. I devote an entire chapter to heterochrony in my book. I used to discuss embryological theory endlessly with Steve Gould who was a very close friend. O and P is a very complex subject. Your comment on condensation is peripheral, and seeks to dismiss the entire phenomenon of recapitulation.
The reason most embryology courses dont mention O and P is that it negates the idea of genetic inheritance of form,which is what heterochrony infers. On the first page of O and P Gould describes his clandestine meeting with a colleague to discuss the forbidden theory of recapitulation.
The drawings in my book reconstruct the missing initial stages of ancient embryogenesis, lost to embryological Condensation and of course do not resemble observed embryology which I am not unfamiliar with after decades of study.
This series began with a comment about balloon biology.
Please note that the association of organic form with inflatable surfaces, or balloons is a fundamental part of Morphology, and has been studied and published for a century. Wilhelm His, inventor of the microtome and father of human embryology published unser Korperformen in 1876 or so showing his famous simulations of the body organs by the deformation of tubes and inflated bladders. His mortal enemy Haeckel ridiculed this as Gummischlauchwissenschaft, (ballon science)and prevented the whole Swiss School of Entwicklungmechanik from publishing or teaching in Germany. As you know, it was His who exposed Haeckel's fake embryo drawings.
Darcy Thomson devotes the hundred pages of chapter five to the mathematics of inflated surfaces as they mimic living form.
Adolph Seilacher and his colleagues at Yale in the 1980's established the Pneu theory (balloon theory), demonstrating by tensorial analysis that the arthropod shell curvature conforms to an inflated surface.
I am proud to be a working balloon head.
If you care to read On the Origin of Form, you will not likely to be able to refute any of its science, since no one has, ever. Try it, you might like it. The problem is that if it is right, then the whole belief system of genetic inheritance of form is wrong. Thats what drives some of your colleagues to resort to ridicule, and respond like wild-eyed fundamentalists. This is a serious matter, and I am sure you will deal with it reasonably. You have demonstrated you interest in self-organization in your orchid article in Seed Magazine , and elsewhere.
Posted by: Stephen P | August 15, 2009 10:06 AM
No, actually your comment #128 triggered my question. I gather that the answer is yes - you think that, at some stage in evolutionary history, after the tiger foetus developed into something resembling a tiger, it then reverted to a blastula. Subsequently the evolutionary line in question gained the other now-observable embryological stages ending in a tiger cub, and lost the pre-blastula stages.
I am lost for words.
Well, maybe not completely. What do you think the adult organism looked (roughly) like (a) immediately before the blastula stage was added and (b) immediately after?
Posted by: Religion™ Brand Brain Staples | August 15, 2009 10:11 AM
Nice try buddy, but I'm afraid you missed grabbing the ring of revolutionary martyrdom by a good few feet. Numerous people have posed relevant scientific questions to you, and you've ignored every last one of them. You have yet to present any scientific responses to our questions. This doesn't surprise me, because your starting point isn't scientific either.I asked you how your supposedly "universal" theory of form origins accounts for an obvious counterexample to your explanation (using rather abrasive language, because you ARE behaving like a cowardly nitwit), and you still haven't answered.
The only time you're willing to engage with people is when they appear to agree with you. Otherwise you behave as though our criticisms are beneath your notice.
That ridicule? That's coming from the fact that you're HIDING from the opposition's points. And from the fact that instead of answering existing questions, you just continue to pile on nonsense. Evolution "deletes from the beginning" and "adds to the end"?????? The beginning and end of WHAT? Embryological development? I'm sorry, but no. That is trivially FALSE. Every single sexually reproducing organism starts from the same thing, A FUCKING EGG. Actually before that, it starts from the fusion of gametes.
Extraordinary claims, extraordinary evidence. You're missing the second part. Your ideas don't even count for the most basic, readily available data.
Evidence or GTFO.
Posted by: stuart pivar | August 15, 2009 10:30 AM
stephen P,
No I dont say that, its nonsense.
But, not put you off,
The subject of embryological evolution is a highly complex
discipine. You are asking the key questions covered by Steve Gould in Ontogeny and Phylogeny, the toughest book I ever read. If you are serious, take the rest of the summer off and wrestle with Ontogeny and Phylogeny. He wrote in my copy, Stuart, thanx for wrestling with my "real " book.
You can read my book in a mere two hours.But I'm no SJG.
Posted by: SEF | August 15, 2009 1:00 PM
@ J #48:
Of course you can't look away - if you're not paying due attention the monkey might come and sit on your lap next before exploding!
It's getting to the stage where all "eminent" scientists and other "Distinguished Fellow"s need to keep a wary eye out for unexploded monkeys in the kook population (and perhaps pre-emptively don flak-jackets).
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage
|
August 15, 2009 1:10 PM
You're right. Gould was a biologist.
Incidentally, Gould described Ontogeny and Phylogeny as a "practice run to learn the style of lengthy exposition before embarking on my magnum opus about macroevolution," which was later published as The Structure of Evolutionary Theory.
Posted by: SEF | August 15, 2009 1:33 PM
@ Azkyroth #126:
No, osteopathy is almost identical to chiropracty on many levels. It had a quite separate start and hence has a distinct name but it actually comes from very similar (if subtly different in magic words) woo background and is also very similar in practice. They both managed to grab market share in the time before medicine became significantly science-based - in particular, before physiotherapy (the real deal) was invented.
Osteopaths make nearly exactly the same bogus claims as chiropracters do (eg of treating glue ear, colic and learning difficulties). They get the same large placebo effect by being very hands on and interactive in the same way. They also have much the same mixture of "moderates" in their ranks - who could, under other circumstances, have become legitimate physiotherapists etc, ie who don't go in for all the background woo and do refer people to real doctors but are still dishonest enough to hang out with the cranks and enable them by providing cover for them to hide behind (just like moderate religionists and fundamentalists).
Posted by: SEF | August 15, 2009 1:46 PM
I already addressed the osteopath similarity in the chiropracty thread (but I think most people had already lost interest because it had fallen off the front page).
Example of osteopathy online (although their hand-delivered leaflets, a strange new addition to my junk mail, make even more bogus* claims). NB also look what else these ones do!
* viz that they do not have any scientific evidence basis for the extraordinary claims they make and it is unresolved whether or not they fully realise this (ie to what degree they are incompetent and/or dishonest in making their false claims - neither being good things).
Posted by: Stephen P | August 15, 2009 2:19 PM
Stuart Pivar:
Well yes, I know that. I was trying to work out whether you know that, because it's what you seem to be implying in your comments #128 and #160.
Apparently you are just going to play a Walter ReMine on us: say we don't understand you, but decline to clarify and keep referring us to your book.
Sorry - for me to buy a book I need a reasonable expectation that I will enjoy it or learn something from it (preferably both). On the evidence to date the chance of me getting either from your book is negligible.
Now, how about answering Peter Irons' questions?
Posted by: Blake Stacey | August 15, 2009 2:43 PM
The problem is that the "belief system" in question is supported by evidence. By your own logic, this evidence refutes the "science" in your book.
Posted by: Danny Sichel | August 16, 2009 8:23 AM
I will now make a statement I am sure that I will someday regret, because it will be quote-mined and used against me.
Stuart Pivar is much more capable than is Stephen Jay Gould -- because Pivar can walk, talk, breathe, think, and eat, whereas all that Gould can do is just lay there and rot.
Posted by: william e emba | August 17, 2009 10:59 AM
Every closed orientable surface is a "multitorus". This is a mathematical theorem, known in some form or other since the late nineteenth century. Therefore, "predicting" that something known to be a closed orientable surface is a multitorus is utterly meaningless.
Posted by: william e emba | August 17, 2009 11:14 AM
Osteopathy began as crank medicine, which at the time made it pretty much on par with mainstream medicine. As the mainstream mostly matured into scientific based medicine, so too did osteopathy, and today, it is hardly distinguishable from the real thing.
There are 25 colleges of osteopathic medicine in the US, and perhaps 10% of all US doctors are DOs, not MDs. The coursework and practical training are almost identical.