…and this is a 
I lied. Lied, lied, lied. You knew I was being sarcastic — there's no way I'm going to give Stuart Pivar a pass.
Pivar has published in a rather obscure journal, The International Journal of Astrobiology, which is obviously going to contain a fair amount of speculation…but his article doesn't fit the subject matter of the journal in the slightest, and I suspect he relied on an unqualified pool of reviewers who knew nothing about developmental biology to get it published. It's the same old crap Pivar has always peddled.
The title of the article is "The origin of the vertebrate skeleton". Flacks for the journal are calling it an "innovative solution to the evolution of form" and are hyping it to a ridiculous degree.
How life originated and evolved is arguably the greatest unsolved problem facing science. Thousands of scientists and scores of organizations and scientific journals are dedicated to discovering the mechanisms underlying this mystery. In the peer-reviewed journal's letter of acceptance the reviewer states, " . . . the article should be published, so that as many scientists as possible can participate in the discussion on this new important subject." Simon Mitton, prominent Cambridge scientist and IJA editor-in-chief, calls it "a groundbreaking concept."
I have a suspicion that the flack writing that copy was…Pivar himself. It sure sounds like the pompous fluff in his books.
I have to criticize a few things in that noise. "How life originated and evolved" is a gigantic constellation of problems; it is not ever going to be answered in a single short paper. That's just extravagant hyperbole. The reviewer's endorsement is vague — encouraging discussion is the least we should expect from any paper — and wrong: Pivar's article is not new, simply rehashing unsupported assertions from previous editions of his self-published books, and it is not important. It's wrong.
Simon Mitton, by the way, is an astronomer. He is not qualified to judge whether a paper about developmental biology is "groundbreaking". And given the appallingly bad quality of the work, I suppose he isn't even qualified to be embarrassed by his incompetent assessment.
The paper itself is patent nonsense. There is no data. It's a fantasy erected around fictitious games in imaginary topology — Pivar invents metaphors of tissue arrangements and cell movements that he claims generate form by purely mechanical forces, but he has no observations or measurements to suggest that they exist anywhere. It's 2½ pages of text and 20 hand-drawn figures with little explanation.
Here, for example, is his explanation of the development and evolution of the skull. The complete story, in one paragraph.
Skull
The skull takes its form from the apical cap, a two-layer spherical surface divided into four sectors and three zones, each containing a hole at the centre resulting from the thinning of the membrane. Hydrostatic collapse causes the ventral half of the outer layer to fold over upon the dorsal half, forming the zygomatic arch and prefrontal ridges. The remaining ventral segments of the apical cap fold underneath the presumptive mandible (Fig. 19).
You may be wondering if perhaps Fig. 19 clarifies this abbreviated gemisch. Here it is.
No, it doesn't.
That middle column illustrates one bizarre assertion: that some part of the mandible rises up over the top of the skull to form the zygomatic arch and a kind of frontal cap. It doesn't do that in any embryo, ever. There is nothing in the anatomical configuration of any vertebrate skull that would even suggest such an origin, and this is the only "data" he shows to back up the claim, a drawing he made. Similarly, there is no apical cap, no pattern of membranes in four sectors of three zones, no arrangement of holes, and I'm completely baffled by the row of lower teeth floating in space waiting for a mandible to drift up and give them a base.
And don't get me started on his fable about how limbs evolve and develop.
It's bullshit at every step with no connection to reality, and he doesn't even try in the text to document any evidence for these various stages. He drew them, and that's good enough for the septic tank king of New York.
How did this get published? I have no idea. Let's be charitable and assume that the reviewers were not drooling idiots, but were just ignorant of the actual data for the evolution and development of these structures, which completely contradicts everything Pivar is claiming. Shouldn't they have looked at the form of the paper? It's embarrassingly inadequate. There are no methods given, so reading the paper gives you no clue about how the conclusions were generated. There are no observations, just a large pile of sketches made with no sign that the artist had ever looked at an embryo. Shouldn't any competent scientist have stopped somewhere in their reading of the paper and asked themself how Pivar knew what he was claiming? Shouldn't they have stopped altogether and either consulted a biologist or recused themselves from reviewing the paper on grounds that it is outside their domain of expertise?
Something funny is going on here. I don't see any other sign that the International Journal of Astrobiology is a crank journal, other than that this dreadful disgrace of a paper got published in it. I'm mystified that a journal would poison their own credibility by publishing a paper this ridiculous, but there it is, a cuckoo in the nest, and no one but some random blogger squawking about it.
I don't think I can trust that journal, ever. Other authors who've published there might want to contact the editors and ask why they they're so willing to flush their reputation away.
Comments
Posted by: Takis Konstantopoulos
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September 28, 2010 4:38 AM
I suppose that given any two pictures, A and B, and sufficient artistic skills, you can create a sequence of images starting from A and ending in B, which looks like a sequence drawn from a continuous transformation. So you can claim and "prove" anything you like. The trouble is, as you say, with the existence of journals which are willing to publish these kinds of results. Unfortunately, publishers want to make money and will, with the help of certain "academics", establish journals in any imaginable (or unimaginable) area, such as, e.g. The Journal of Bioastrology [sic].
Posted by: Moggie
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September 28, 2010 4:41 AM
It's like someone gave a clown some acid and a box of pencils.
Posted by: Sigmund
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September 28, 2010 4:42 AM
Maybe it was reviewed, not by scientists, but by fans of steampunk line drawings. Lots of the figures reminded me of the creatures in the movie '9'
http://www.dreadcentral.com/img/news/aug09/9-acker8-1b.jpg
Posted by: Truckle
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September 28, 2010 4:50 AM
I am reminded of this Ricky Gervais sketch in his show Animals.
(As its Gervais its prolly NSFW I can't even access it ;))
Posted by: tesserazoa
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September 28, 2010 4:52 AM
Oh no! I published in that journal once, and based on citations the paper seems to get read every once in a while. But ISI is never going to cover it now! I won't be able to please my administrators with the jump in my "numbers" that I anticipated once ISI picked it up.
Quelle fromage! I tell you.
Posted by: Blake Stacey
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September 28, 2010 5:11 AM
Pivar writes all his own best endorsements. It's the only way to be sure of getting a glowing review: provide all the shine yourself.
Posted by: Blake Stacey
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September 28, 2010 5:34 AM
Rumour has it that Pivar's next paper will be a collaboration with Vincent Fleury, demonstrating that mitochondria are not just powerhouses of the cell but also generators of the Force.
Posted by: SC OM
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September 28, 2010 5:46 AM
It's just...so loony.
Posted by: coffeeandsci
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September 28, 2010 6:12 AM
#7 @ Blake Stacey
You may have a point about the "generators of the Force", but I think Vincent will be disappointed by the absence of counter-rotating vortices in Stuart's drawings.
Hope he will write to Mitton to inform him how Stuart has poor observation skills.
Posted by: keenacat
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September 28, 2010 6:32 AM
...and she was like, OMG, he found out most animals are SYMMETRICAL! And I was like WTF?
And we were like OMG! WTF?
Posted by: steeroy.com
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September 28, 2010 6:37 AM
The little lines radiating from the separating hooves, which one can only assume symbolize a gentle popping sound in the womb, are pure gold.
Posted by: Bjoern U.
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September 28, 2010 6:38 AM
are you sure it isn't meant to be science fiction?
Posted by: The Tim Channel
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September 28, 2010 6:43 AM
I surmise that this Pivar guy kinda pisses you off. So many idiots to attend to that it's hard to know which mole to whack sometimes. The environment seems so overwhelmingly target rich with ignorant bullshit artists it's downright depressing some days. We must remain as tediously monotonous in our repetition of the truth as the bullshit artists (many with Fox megaphones) do in their ENDLESS propaganda.
Enjoy.
Posted by: Dionysius
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September 28, 2010 6:57 AM
These 'illustrations' reminded me of those hilarious drawings done by children who don't know the correct answer to test questions. Is he the ultimate result of Xian home schooling?
Posted by: Brian
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September 28, 2010 6:57 AM
I can see why he was published in the Journal of Astrobiology, though. Biology, because it's about living things, and Astro-, because it's really fucking out there.
Posted by: MikeMa
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September 28, 2010 6:59 AM
Stuey shows up here to alternately argue and threaten as I recall. Cool. Can't wait for him to try to defend this crap.
Posted by: Philip Legge
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September 28, 2010 6:59 AM
Blake @ #6:
FTFY; don’t mention it. ;-)
Posted by: Quodlibet
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September 28, 2010 7:03 AM
My favorite part is in Figure 9 - those manicured, polished nails! - I wish mine had evolved like that.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp
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September 28, 2010 7:20 AM
At least he's moved past balloon animals.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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September 28, 2010 7:23 AM
Looks like the journal was hard up for papers, and would take anything to fill its page allotment. Still nothing cogent being presented.
Posted by: edjelaplaya
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September 28, 2010 7:25 AM
the problem with this is, that 30-40 years from now some creationist will use this article as part of his argument for creationism. claiming real science supports it.
Posted by: Aliasalpha
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September 28, 2010 7:28 AM
Am I the only one that thinks someone was playing Spore right before doing his homework?
Posted by: David Marjanović
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September 28, 2010 7:30 AM
Wow. Comment 15 is the only reason I can imagine why a journal of astrobiology published something that pretends to belong to development biology. Otherwise, editors immediately write back "send this to a more appropriate journal" when they receive a submission that lies outside the topic of their journal, and if they don't do it, the reviewers do.
Pivar, the editors, and the reviewers themselves are the only people in the world who have access to that reviewer's report. This almost proves Pivar is the flack.
For crying out loud. Zygomatic arch! Pivar is ignorant enough of nonmammalian vertebrate anatomy that he didn't notice the thing here isn't the donut, it's the hole. The bones were all already there, and then the (lateral) temporal fenestra evolved between them, and then the whole region got distorted in derived therapsids by the jaw joints moving upwards. The zygomatic arch is the lower part of the donut; it's what remains of the jugal bone now that over half of its former extent is occupied by that hole that lightens the skull and gives more space to the jaw muscles.
Man. I didn't even notice them at first! :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D
Posted by: David Marjanović
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September 28, 2010 7:34 AM
Not in the least. He still talks about "hydrostatic pressure" and "hydrostatic collapse", and what fig. 9 presents is not new either.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp
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September 28, 2010 7:35 AM
Oh well.
Posted by: Blake Stacey
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September 28, 2010 7:42 AM
Pivar does have friends in the PR business willing to leave comments under fake names, so who can tell: maybe he delegated.
Posted by: Penny
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September 28, 2010 7:42 AM
I'm no biology expert.
BUT anyone who has ever seen an image of a fetus (or even seen 2001!) should know that the drawing of hands developing is total bollocks!
(What was his take on the latter? Or aren't fundy nutters allowed to discuss such things?)
Posted by: PZ Myers
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September 28, 2010 7:49 AM
One cute touch is that he refers to Haeckel's dismissal of Wilhelm His' modeling:
He's still stung by the balloon animals remark, I think.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp
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September 28, 2010 7:51 AM
Oh I'm sure it drives him crazy... um crazier.
Posted by: snownet
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September 28, 2010 7:55 AM
Those drawings remind me of the Codex Seraphinianus. See two humans 'evolve' into an alligator: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b6/Codex-seraphinianus-abbeville.jpg
Posted by: Rog
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September 28, 2010 8:03 AM
With all due respect PZ, I don't think you read the paper carefully enough. He very clearly states:
QED muthafuckas!Posted by: Katharine
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September 28, 2010 8:09 AM
... HAS THIS MAN ACTUALLY TAKEN BASIC BIOLOGY?!
Posted by: Greg F.
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September 28, 2010 8:09 AM
"I don't see any other sign that the International Journal of Astrobiology is a crank journal, other than that this dreadful disgrace of a paper got published in it."
Another one of this journal's gems includes a paper arguing that the universe is 150 billion years old based on a statistical projection of star and galaxy ages with no regard for relativity or inflation by a statistician...
http://worldofweirdthings.com/2010/07/31/the-daily-galaxys-alternative-chronology/
So yeah... When a five minute Google search is enough to show that the paper being published is rubbish, it doesn't speak well about the journal.
Posted by: Greg F.
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September 28, 2010 8:12 AM
Whoops, sorry...
That was the International Journal of Cosmology. Please disregard that last comment.
Posted by: KyBoiler
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September 28, 2010 8:22 AM
As an expert with the glowing credentials of passing Bio101, the hand drawings are hilarious. Limb buds and digits, Hox and Sonic Hedgehog... these are areas that are relatively well understood. I should submit something to this journal. Can I get published only citing popular science books like Zimmer and Dawkins and Intro to Bio textbooks?
Posted by: Nice Ogress
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September 28, 2010 8:28 AM
Um.
IS there a science of 'astrobiology'? Sounds like it's much of a muchness with 'cryptozoology', the science of Nessie.
Y'all remember when Harlan Ellison stopped being a 'science-fiction writer' and started being a 'futurist'? Maybe he's recanted since, but for a while he was on this kick of how 'futurist' was a better title because he was in the business of PREDICTING THE FUTURE, and didn't write that low 'science fiction' anymore. (Because, y'know, having a cool-sounding title will TOTALLY make all your made-up shit come true, fifty years later!)
Posted by: MultiTool
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September 28, 2010 8:35 AM
Any chance Pivar is schizophrenic? His output looks like an elaborate delusional system.
If he isn't naturally crazy, I would suspect chronic use of hallucinogens.
Plus, there's the kind of pointlessness to this you'd see from genuinely crazy output. It isn't political, it isn't for money, and even to the degree it is for Pivar's ego he could do a much better job, even as a fraud.
Posted by: Blondin
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September 28, 2010 8:44 AM
I think he uses the term "speculative fiction" these days.
Posted by: MadScientist
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September 28, 2010 8:47 AM
It's so embarrassing - the referees should have declined, or at least opened a basic biology textbook.
I wonder if the journal has articles on Vulcan and Klingon physiology, or the histology of Q.
Posted by: Free Lunch
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September 28, 2010 8:50 AM
Journals that don't stick to their knitting deserve to be slapped like this. Did Alan Sokal's hoax happen so long ago that journals have forgotten that they only have expertise in limited areas (aside from Science and Nature which are able to get qualified referees in any subject)?
Posted by: dsichel
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September 28, 2010 8:51 AM
Well, look. There's no journal for Xenobiology, so where else could one submit observations of life on 47 Ursae Majoris VIII?
Posted by: Schenck
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September 28, 2010 8:52 AM
This is really fortuitous; my students are just about ready to start researching their term papers and this might make a great example of why you can't just assume that, because something is peer reviewed, its automatically the 'gospel truth'.
I'll have to get this paper and check it out first.
Posted by: Katharine
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September 28, 2010 9:04 AM
Free Lunch, I think we need a whole new blitz of Sokalesque hoaxes, not only directed at the sources the original Sokal hoax targeted but also at journals such as these which have frighteningly low standards for what they publish.
Posted by: AJ Milne OM
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September 28, 2010 9:10 AM
It continues to be one of the best allies of good science education: the fact that creationists read so slowly.
Posted by: Philip Legge
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September 28, 2010 9:28 AM
#41
Posted by: dsichel | September 28, 2010 8:51 AM
In the vein of the Alan Sokal hoax, perhaps the Astrobiology journal would be interested in spectroscopic analyses of exoplanetary atmospheres detected using the transit method, analyses with interesting absorption lines for oxygen, say, or chlorophyll. (The method exists for obtaining spectra of new exoplanets currently being found, but no such results have so far eventuated... quelle surprise.)
Posted by: captnkurt
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September 28, 2010 9:47 AM
Oh, hey! I think I found some of Pivar's earlier papers on how frogs transform into fish and fish transform into birds.
I hear tell he's also got a masters thesis floating around out there in which he explains how chess slowly became the form it is today.
Posted by: Foggg
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September 28, 2010 9:48 AM
Hmmm... is this the Simon Mitton who wrote a biography of Fred Hoyle, his research supervisor and one of the most controversial figures of 20th century science? Hoyle's reputation was eventually ruined by his habit of barging into fields as varied as biology, archaeology and palaeontology and making grandiose pronouncements.
Mitton attempted to rehabilitate Hoyle's standing, minimizing and evading some of the controversies.
Biographer now imitating biographee?
[Did you know our nostrils point downward to minimize the inhalation of all the (equivalent of) viruses drifting down from space? Space viruses that Hoyle thought controlled evolution?]
Posted by: brembs.net
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September 28, 2010 10:06 AM
Merely a dozen references, one to himself and then this gem:
Steiner, R. (1988). Goethean Science (translated by W. Lindeman). Mercury Press, Spring Valley, New York.
Rudolf Steiner is the founder of the Anthroposophy esoteric movement and the work Pivar cites basically describes Steiner's esoteric world-view, not Goethe's...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Steiner
BS from the title to the references.
Posted by: siveambrai.myopenid.com
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September 28, 2010 10:28 AM
Yea I don't know about this journal or who ever reviews for it... but every single review packet that I have ever received, the first question is usually "Does this article fit the scope and area of the journal?"
The reviewers should have answered that question with a "No" full stop.
To the other commenters I think your intent in pushing for another Sokal idea is good but the actual Sokal incident was really not such a good thing for academic publishing. When the MSM got a hold of it, it was used to undermine the credibility of all science research. While we do want to remind scientists within our community about their responsibility to make sure good research is being published I don't think writing fake papers is the way to do it.
Posted by: Bodach
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September 28, 2010 10:41 AM
I see Phil Plait's fingerprints all over this. He acted in collusion with this weirdo, helped him get published, and is trying to water down the 'science' of biology and cast aspersions across the entire field!!11!!
Posted by: tommylfleung
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September 28, 2010 10:48 AM
Oh gee, *this* guy and his origami creatures? I’d recognised those origami critters anywhere!
About six or seven years ago, my former PhD supervisor received an unsolicited copy of a book call “Life Code” – it was a lavishly illustrated vanity press affair. He lent it to me for a laugh and that I did too. Basically from what I can tell, the dude has basically made some terrible, terrible misunderstanding of evo-devo and came up with his own crazy theory of evolution.
There was very little text, but a lot of illustration along the line of what I see above – all beautifully coloured and actually quite aesthetically pleasing. The print was quite glossy too so it must have cost him a fair amount for that bit of vanity press. I think he took “a picture’s worth a thousand words” quite literally. In the last chapter he did alluded to astrobiology and what implication his “theory” has for astrobiology.
Funny that’s it in that particular journal now. Wait, did I just type “funny”? I meant tragic.
“Im in ur jornlz publuzin ma crazy shiz”
Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist
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September 28, 2010 11:00 AM
I presume we can look forward to "Reflections and implications of Cubed Time-space modeling on astrophysics" in the journal of physics soon?
Posted by: Amenhotepstein
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September 28, 2010 11:00 AM
That description of limb development is just so wrong (but I looove the "popping sound"). There isn't a word in the language that conveys just how clearly wrong that figure is - I'm synonymless!
What's even more depressing is that, however crappy his paper is, it was published in a peer-reviewed journal. I'm an AssProf at a small, liberal-arts college and peer-reviewed publications with students are considered very important for tenure. My students and I have been banging our heads against a wall for over a year to try and get some publishable data. To think that I could just pull something speculative out of my ass and have it published in J. Astrobiology hurts me deep in my gut. Seriously, I don't think I can eat lunch after reading this.
But I'll be damned if I'll do something like that just to get tenure. I'll let them throw me out on the street before stooping to Pivar's level!
Posted by: cairne.morane
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September 28, 2010 11:01 AM
"It's so embarrassing - the referees should have declined, or at least opened a basic biology textbook."
IANAS but surely if you need to open a textbook (basic or not) before reviewing a paper then that should be your first, and final, clue that you're not qualified to review the paper?
Posted by: Doug Little
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September 28, 2010 11:01 AM
Shit does this mean I need to revise my list of people that are NOT going to win a Nobel prize? I didn't have Pivar on my list, I had kind of forgotten about him.
Posted by: gussnarp
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September 28, 2010 11:06 AM
It is called the Journal of Astrobiology after all. How much can they have to cover given that we haven't actually found any biology of the astro type to study?
Posted by: Doug Little
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September 28, 2010 11:09 AM
Yes, if hooves separate in the womb and nobody is around to hear them, do they make a sound?
According to Pivar they do!
Posted by: Brownian, Most Vicious & Petty of Pharyngulites
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September 28, 2010 11:10 AM
No, no, much as I hate to say it, Pivar is on to something. This process isn't just morphological and describes evolution, it's also lexical and describes ontogeny:
For instance, take an immature horse:
foal
coal
coll*
colt
molt
mole
more
mare
*Intermediate form as yet unknown.
My hypothesis is far from fully fleshed out, but I believe I am at the forefront of an idea which will revolutionise developmental biology!
"I believe that Brownian's conjecture, while admittedly rudimentary at this time, has the power to completely transform our understanding of how organisms grow and develop. It is my sincere hope that future generations of developmental biologists will trade in their crude and barbaric scalpels for Scrabble tiles, maybe even those fancy ones you get with the expensive anniversary sets."—Stuart Pivar
Posted by: gibbroster
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September 28, 2010 11:27 AM
This HAS to be nominated for an Ig Noble Prize!
Posted by: Doug Little
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September 28, 2010 11:27 AM
Brownian, You have the first progression incorrect, no need for an unknown intermediate, although I require one extra step.
foal
fool
cool
coot
colt
Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/yJNTxfs5j.KZJAp9er13NOGPJqo-#d62e3
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September 28, 2010 11:30 AM
Nerd of Redhead
If that's the case, the journal should be just shut down. Remember 'publish or perish'? There are scientists pushing manuscripts by the truckload, and if J Astrobiol isn't getting any, that should tell them something.
Posted by: Peter Ashby
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September 28, 2010 11:31 AM
As someone who has specifically studied limb development and have my name on some papers in the subject I am just flabbergasted at the ignorance on display. Further words have failed me.
Class this in the cesspool of stuff that is not even wrong.
Posted by: Brownian, Most Vicious & Petty of Pharyngulites
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September 28, 2010 11:36 AM
Wow! See, I've already spurred on a Renaissance!
I should add a disclaimer to my above comment: I did not intend to attribute the above quotation to Stuart Pivar. Instead, I wrote what I believe is something Mr. Pivar might say, if I were to send it to him and ask for his opinion. Like Mr. Pivar however, I am nothing if not efficient about my work, and I believe that level of research is wholly unnecessary.
Posted by: Rey Fox, Bird Caller Guy
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September 28, 2010 11:36 AM
"It's just...so loony."
I know, and it doesn't even have any aliens, so I don't know how this guy can get so excited about it.
What would happen if someone were to show him an actual embryo?
Posted by: Keith
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September 28, 2010 12:40 PM
I can't help myself. The progression from "foal" to "colt" must be:
foal
coal
coat
colt
though I did like the inclusion of "fool". It added a nice flavour. The "coll" was fun too because it was an as yet undiscovered (but obviously we will, some day) intermediate form.
Posted by: David Marjanović
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September 28, 2010 12:58 PM
Nope. "Rubber hose science". And note again that it's a single word.
What? What MSM are you reading?
IAAS, and I approve of this message.
Where to look for life, how, and why. Including research on what Life As We Only Just Found Out About It is like (and its implications).
:-o
...Pure... genius.
Yesyes. <vehement nodding>
CELEBRITY DEATHMATCH!!! ¿¡¿Quién es más parcimoniosooooo?!?
Posted by: rident
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September 28, 2010 12:59 PM
#1 - I thought of the same thing when I saw it. I remember doing many of those transformations. That is a common artistic training exercise and project that just about every designer/artist does in "Design I" or their school's equivalent of the class.
Posted by: PZ Myers
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September 28, 2010 1:05 PM
Oy, you guys have drawn another kook out of the woodwork.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp
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September 28, 2010 1:09 PM
hahahahaha
Posted by: No One
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September 28, 2010 1:11 PM
Is the a form of "negative" award we can give this?
Something that actually has a negative value (-10?).
Get one and you need to do something cohesive just to get out of the hole.
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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September 28, 2010 1:13 PM
Oh no, not Fleury again!
Posted by: First Approximation, L'esprit de l'escalier
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September 28, 2010 1:37 PM
@#67
BWAHAHAHAHA.....
Let's get Pivar and Fleury to fight it out.
Posted by: Steven Mading
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September 28, 2010 1:46 PM
I think the next logical step is for creationists to start trying to get their articles published in the Journal of Irreproducible Results as the next step down the scientific journal hierarchy..
Posted by: Stephen_P
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September 28, 2010 2:27 PM
So is making a joke now a crime under French law? Or is it failing to recognise a joke that is a crime? How about being a joke?
Posted by: blf
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September 28, 2010 2:37 PM
Fixed. (Actually the journal in question may be respectable(normally) if obviously speculative.)
Posted by: blf
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September 28, 2010 2:40 PM
Bullshite.
Posted by: Boudicca
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September 28, 2010 3:09 PM
Interesting theory, however your intermediate stage (colt) is male while your final stage (mare) is female.... I think you've just discovered some interesting hermaphroditic properties of horses! Amazing! Quick, go publish!
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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September 28, 2010 3:16 PM
Jebus, Fleury the crank is still Googling himself. Only conceited asses and cranks do that. Still worth a laugh for sheer egotism. We are laughing at you Fleury....
Posted by: jafafahots
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September 28, 2010 3:25 PM
Dang. I wish *I* were smart enough to know how to be falsely accused of committing a petty crime in France over the internet from elsewhere.
I'd be able to frame the "we demand you come to France so we can prosecute you!" letter. It would go nicely with the fake cease and desist and lawsuit threats and the false arrest report in my collection.
Posted by: jafafahots
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September 28, 2010 3:28 PM
"...Googling himself. Only conceited asses and cranks do that."
I protest. This is not always true. For me it's often the only way I have of recalling what positions on topics I've taken and argued vociferously about in the past. "Oh yeah, right... I was FOR that. OK."
Posted by: irenedelse
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September 28, 2010 3:54 PM
@ keenacat #10:
Can't... comment... laughing too hard...
*snort*
Posted by: Sven DiMilo
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September 28, 2010 4:00 PM
Steel Cage Grudge Match! The Balloon Bender versus the Swami of Swirlies! No holds barred and no data allowed!
Posted by: irenedelse
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September 28, 2010 4:07 PM
@ Nice Ogress "36: Sure, there is a science of 'astrobiology'. Ask Zach Weiner, for instance...
Posted by: irenedelse
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September 28, 2010 4:17 PM
*Sigh*
Memo to Vincent Fleury: sorry, dear, this website is not hosted on a server set on the French soil, so you'll have to take your claim to an American court. Good luck.
Oh, and while you are at it, if you could find you way to get a clue, please do it. It would make things so much better for the collective reputation of our country - especially its scientists.
Kthnxbai.
Posted by: A Bad Idea (♀)
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September 28, 2010 4:32 PM
Re this Fleury guy:
I sincerely wonder if he just isn't picking up the jokingess in what I presume isn't his native language. Or is he really just that stuck up?
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, OM
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September 28, 2010 5:50 PM
By American and other civilized countries laws, satire, caricature and parody are protected free speech. I suspect that under French law "propagation of false rumors" requires a reasonable expectation that the recipients of the rumors believe them to be true. Posts N°7 and N°9, aka #7 and #9, are recognized by this thread's readership as not being literally true.
Posted by: Owlmirror
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September 28, 2010 9:10 PM
If Pivar and Fleury and Gene Ray got together and collaborated, we would presumably be graced with not just cubical balloon animals, but whirling cubical balloon animals.
Clearly this is what the Saint John was trying inadequately to describe in his book of Revelation.
REPENT NOW THE END OF THE WORLD IS NIGH.
Posted by: Brucenator
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September 29, 2010 12:04 AM
But you don't understand, it is the only accurately predictive model of morphogenesis ever published. Pivar says so himself. Doesn't that count? Doesn't that somehow make him equivalent to Darwin or something? I'm sure that's his line of reasoning. My inclination was to say that at least you have to give him credit for his imaginative art skills, but I can't even do that. If nothing else, his conclusion that his model "sees the human body as a rationally generated structure" should have been a tip off to even the most unqualified of reviewers, but not much surprises me anymore. Another creationist kook trying to pretend he is not a creationist. The reviewers must be jaded, apparently had a backlog when this article was received, and must have been asleep and not really read it when they put it in the "accepted" pile two and a half months later. Old man Pivar must have been ecstatic, I mean ecstatic, when it got published! Cambridge should be ashamed. This reflects badly on the American educational system in general. What I mean to say is, an article like this would NEVER have gotten published in, say, Germany. Genuine heartfelt thanks to you and academics like yourself who expose this utter nonsense.
Posted by: DLC
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September 29, 2010 12:21 AM
Does Vincent also demand a Leica camera body ?
Posted by: Rey Fox, Bird Caller Guy
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September 29, 2010 12:33 AM
"Bullshite."
Merde du taureau.
Posted by: Diane G.
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September 29, 2010 1:19 AM
After that sample of such laugh-out-loud figures, I was delighted to find that the article was viewable free of charge so that I could see the others. Do go look, everyone. Bet you didn't know that hands develop in a praying position (Fig. 6). Feet too (Fig.8).
Although his drawing ability itself is impressive. Those would look great on a t-shirt.
Can there be Poes in developmental bio?
Posted by: wanderinweeta
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September 29, 2010 1:58 AM
I want that t-shirt!
The skull is especially good; I think I've met stage 5 in real life.
Posted by: jahigginbotham
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September 29, 2010 2:17 AM
How do these abstracts from the same journal sound?:
Chandra Wickramasinghea1 c1
a1 Cardiff Centre for Astrobiology, Cardiff University, 2 North Road, Cardiff CF10 3DY, UK
Abstract
With steadily mounting evidence that points to a cosmic origin of terrestrial life, a cultural barrier prevails against admitting that such a connection exists. Astronomy continues to reveal the presence of organic molecules and organic dust on a huge cosmic scale, amounting to a third of interstellar carbon tied up in this form. Just as the overwhelming bulk of organics on Earth stored over geological timescales are derived from the degradation of living cells, so it seems likely that interstellar organics in large measure also derive from biology. As we enter a new decade – the year 2010 – a clear pronouncement of our likely alien ancestry and of the existence of extraterrestrial life on a cosmic scale would seem to be overdue.
On the applicability of dialetheism and philosophy of identity to the definition of life
Vera M. Kolba1
a1 Department of Chemistry, University of Wisconsin-Parkside, Kenosha, WI 53141, USA e-mail: kolb@uwp.edu
Abstract
We have found that the principles of dialetheism, which state that some contradictions (typically at the limits of a system) may be true, and which amply demonstrate the limits of thought and conception, can be valuable in sorting out and clarifying some astrobiological problems that impede our ability to define life. The examples include the classification of viruses as alive or not alive, and the description of the transition zone for the abiotic-to-biotic transition. Dialetheism gives us the philosophical tool to state that the viruses may be both alive and not alive, and that chemical systems may exist that are both abiotic and biotic.
We have extracted some philosophical principles of the identity and have applied them to the identity of living organisms and their life forms. The first and most important idea is that we should define an individual organism via its numerical identity. For each organism its identity will be in relation to itself. As the organism undergoes various changes during its development, and as it transitions from one to the next of its life forms, one can observe numerous qualitative differences between these life forms. Although the life forms change and the organism is in a flux, what remains constant is the numerical identity of the organism. If the organism reproduces, for example by a fission mode, then the daughter cells will have their own numerical identity. We can state that the life of an organism is a sum of all its life forms over the period of time of the existence of the organism. Reproduction, particularly by fission, represents an identity dilemma, but it can be resolved by Gallois' occasional identities theory.
Posted by: Samantha Vimes
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September 29, 2010 2:39 AM
It... shocks me beyond words this got published. Does he have blackmail info on the editors? Was he holding someone's family hostage?
I think most 12 year olds know that isn't how extremities develop. I mean... a sphere that seperates into hands/hooves/talons? W.T.F. I have trouble fathoming how that would even work. Does the handblob blob out from the bodyblob already attached to the shoulders?
Posted by: Peter Ashby
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September 29, 2010 9:27 AM
@jahigginbotham
The Wickramasinghe is as I might expect, even down the whine about 'everybody laughs at me these days'. But the Kolbai is just oodles of postmodernist win. How to go off on a wibble fest by simple trick of pretending that we have a viable, proof for all time definition of life. We don't, the most likely reason for which is that there is no hard, definable line dividing biology from chemistry.
But she didn't let that little problem stop her from thinking too hard. The real giveaway though was the admission of essentialism:
All together now: Eric the half a bee . . .
Posted by: FredSmith1
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October 4, 2010 4:36 AM
Doesn't anyone here use google?
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/09/garden/09PIVA.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1
It can be safely guessed that Mr. Pivar has more than 300 objects in the duplex apartment he shares with Helen Matsos in a neo-Gothic building on West 67th Street in Manhattan.
Ms. Matsos, 39, is a biophysicist with a special expertise in looking for fossil life in Martian meteorites. She is a consulting researcher at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the editor in chief of Astrobiology Magazine, an Internet publication based at the Goddard Institute of Columbia University
Posted by: John Morales
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October 4, 2010 4:55 AM
FredSmith1, I fail to see the relevance of your reference.
Many people are married, and have multiple objects in their residence.