…and this is a 
Clarifying tetrapod embryogenesis, accurately
By OldCola
[Note from pzm: The text of this one is a little rougher than I like, but the content is interesting and addresses the claims of a character who has been lurking about here for a while, and whose work I've criticized before. If nothing else, I'd also like to see a few science posts submitted as guest articles, so think of this as priming the pump.]
The article, "Clarifying tetrapod embryogenesis, a physicistʼs point of view," by V. Fleury, hasn't steered the revolution expected by Fleury in evo-devo. Two years after the publication, cited by one (Fleury himself), the article seems to have being more useful to clarify the way he perceives the world, then anything related to the tetrapods embryogenesis. And the most useful elements are to be found on the Web, not in the article per se. Direct questions remain unanswered, critics are threatened by legal action for defamation, and hierarchical superiors are solicited to politely ask the critics to STFU.
While Fleury must be aware by now of major flaws in the way he represented several of the articles he used as sources of information, and of several inconsistencies of his model and the way he extrapolates his own data, he doesn't seem to have done anything to correct them. The article remains available unchanged, a shame for EPJ AP editorial board (and Editor-in-Chief Dr Drévillon B. in particular), sufficiently shameful at least for the guy who invited the review, for Fleury to avoid disclosing his name.
A new element comes to complete Fleury's quest:
V. Fleury, Dynamic topology of the cephalochordate to amniote morphological transition: A self- organized system of Russian dolls, C. R. Biologies (2011), doi:10.1016/j.crvi.2010.11.009
During evolution of vertebrates a sequence of events is empirically observed: first, animals are bilateral, but they have no heart, no head, and no surrounding bag during development (these primitive animals are called cephalochordates [1]).
From the very first phrase of the Introduction, you know hope that no biologist read the manuscript before it was accepted for publication. And certainly not any evo-devo person, which would be the right choice for a referee for this kind of subject.
Cephalochordates are certainly not vertebrates and they certainly have a head, the sub-phylum being named after the fact that the notochord extends into that head. One may think that Fleury misused the word "head", meaning "skull" or whatever, but if you read the French summary of the paper you do get the same information, Cephalochordata don't have a "tête" (French for "head").
And he dare give a reference! But if you had the courage to read his previous article (for a review) you may be familiar with the strange way Fleury reports his readings (at least the way he understood them), in an absolutely surreal way, including data from his own lab! If not, there is a brand new example in this one (see below).
By the title you may have expected to read about comparative embryology/anatomy that will enlighten you on the relations between the body plans of cephalochordates and amniotes. If so, you will be deceived. Fleury focuses entirely on chicken embryos, hoping to prove experimentally the existence of some kind of order in the ontogeny of the chicken that reflects an order in the phylogeny of chordates. The reading is interesting not to learn anything about evolution or embryology (or physics by the way), but to see how an a priori can lead someone to mess up things badly. Fleury observes the world through a keyhole shaped by Plato a long time ago and he seeks some equivalent of the Holly Grail: a way to write the essence of the pattern of tetrapods without evolutionary arguments, as it "exist in the platonician space of forms", while avoiding being embarrassed by the bullshit produced by embryologists, geneticists or evo-devo people.
The aim of this work is to support that "the formation of amniotes would be a deterministic attractor of a physical process over a flat visco-elastic plane," and that the formation of the heart and the chorion (you should pronounce it amnios to make sense) are the consequence of the body's growth along the anteroposterior axis.
Thus, any embryo with the amniotic (and chorionic) cavity formed before the beginning of gastrulation would falsify Fleury's model definitively. I'll come to that later.
While aware of the lateral folding of the embryo around an antero-posterior (AP) axis, Fleury avoid to discuss it as his model don't explain it. Cardiac tubes are formed as mirror structures at both sides of and parallel to the AP axis, they migrate to the midline where they fuse to form the heart and they are already pre-determined to produce almost fully developed hearts if by some mutation their migration to the midline is impaired. Cardiac formation is not caused by the the cephalic fold renamed "cardiac fold" by Fleury.
The fact that the cephalic and caudal folds forming the anterior and posterior intestinal portals are distant in time by almost 24 h doesn't bother him and his model lack any modality that would explain the latency for the formation of the posterior intestinal portal. On the contrary, he manage to represent the two folds as the result of the AP axis extension in a single schema, as being the consequences of a single phenomenon, "[f]or the sake of clarity". He is not at his first temporal jump of embryonic structures, even of imaginary ones.
What kind of physicist could have reviewed the manuscript without requiring some kind of explanation about this particularity?
There is nothing really new in his description of the development of the chicken embryo, except the errors and omissions which make it unusable. One may prefer a classic textbook, published a while ago: Patten, B.M. (1920). The Early Embryology of the Chick. Philadelphia: P. Blakiston's Son and Co. You can browse through it at UNSW Embryology pages, where the scans of the illustrations are of much better quality.
Some data may be interesting for people interested by the dynamics of the embryo formation, the article being based on time lapse videos of the developing embryo. There is no much of it and the graphics seem to report on single experiments (no number of observed embryos given, no variance bars on the graphics). What is really new for me, is that Fleury found a way to report a "rate of variation of the radius" of an ellipse, with a major vs minor axis ratio of ~1,5 (fig 3, a, 0'), giving a single value! Any mathematician around to explain us this?
As Fleury decided to rename the formation of the subcephalic pocket "cardiac fold", and he was seeking some symmetry at the caudal region, he also renamed the subcaudal pocket "cardiac fold" and he triumphantly mention the "aneural heart" of the hagfish as an evidence of the power of prediction of his model. Now, the caudal heart of the hagfish is just a pair of specialized structures on the caudal veins, parallel to the AP axis, as the primitive heart tubes, separated by a cartilage septum and they are innervated! Jensen, in the Introduction of his paper clearly explain the anatomy of the circulatory system of the hagfish and what elements are innervated, or not. Either Fleury didn't bothered reading the paper or he is simply unable to understand what he is reading (or both, your guess). It would have be nice if he had read the paper, because he passed over the existence of the portal heart and of what some people call the cephalic hearts of the hagfish (specialized gill musculature which propel the blood through the arterial circulation). There is even an illustration for people bored by textual explications (fig 4). Such a little animal, so many hearts and not enough folds to explain them. Unnerving.
Patten starts his Introduction by a very wise advice:
The only method of attaining a comprehensive understanding of embryological processes is through the study and comparison of development in various animals.As I said, any embryo with the amniotic cavity formed before the beginning of gastrulation would falsify Fleury's model definitively. Let me present you an artist's rendition of Dr Fleury at his early youth, second week of development
The illustration is from the online Human Embryology course notes (clic the image for the full page). I'm not sure they had in mind Vincent Fleury when they draw this cartoon, but it's the best I can offer you: A cute embryo with his amniotic cavity lined with cells from the epiblast and his primary yolk sac lined by cells derived by the hypoblast. The Heuser's membrane is still attached to the extraembryonic reticulum.
A few days later, the secondary yolk sac had formed and the chorionic cavity was installed.
Those of you interested to learn about embryo's folding can also visit Folding of the germinal disk and the generation of the abdominal wall, in which case the comparison of the two foldings (cephalo-caudal and lateral), animation is a must for the visitor, and certainly for Fleury.
How sad that a great model from an experimentalist working all day with embryos, goes down the drain after being confronted to elements of chapter 5 of a Human Embryology textbook.
Several questions come in mind in this situation, the first one being: who the hell reviewed the manuscript. Not a biologist, probably not a physicist (he should have ask for a mechanism explaining the delay of formation of the caudal fold). Not a second year student of biology or medicine neither; she would have spotted the problem with the amniotic and chorionic cavities subito presto. Fleury's precedent paper was an invited review by one of the editors of a journal of physics. You can't blame the guy for being unable to understand the bunch of errors the review contains. OK, you can blame him for not having a specialist's opinion on the final piece of work. Misplaced trust. And sometimes, some physicists are just pissed-off by life scientists. Fleury didn't even dared to give his name.
This time, the journal is a publication of the French National Academy of Science and it displays "Biologies" on the cover. Shame on them. Until this paper is retracted who would trust the "Development and reproduction biology" section of the journal, or the journal at all? I wouldn't, would you?
"Therefore, this suggest" is one fabulous transition.
The Methods section of the paper may be interesting if you plan a few experiments with chicken embryos, but dramatically incomplete. The most interesting part is missing: the references of the software and the method Fleury is using for PIV, which gives him astonishing images. I would like to be able to check by myself, previous interpretations of experimental data, even the ones generated in his lab, by Fleury being as much surreal as his usual stuff. Hopefully he could complete this section in the comments of this post.
In Heart formation, Fleury undergo to explain how the heart is formed by the heart fold. Here is the first part where it goes really bad. I can understand the frustration of a physicist who would like to have more data concerning the biomechanics of the process, and hopefully somebody else than Fleury will go for them. But there is no need to reinvent the wheel, there are nice descriptions of the movements by which the heart tubes are forming, how the lateral folding of the embryo make them join along the anteroposterior axis and describing their fusion to produce the unique heart tube [1]. Certainly, the 125° rotation of the heart fields and the lateral folding of the embryo necessary for the normal cardiogenenic process are not perpendicular to the anteroposterior axis and doesn't fit Fleury's model, but it isn't reasonable to just ignore them. You can't just ignore what it doesn't fit your model to make it sound plausible.
Anyway, even the fusion of the primary heart tubes doesn't seem to be necessary to support the development and morphogenesis of the heart, up to some point: "a highly differentiated four-chambered mammalian heart" in the case of Foxp4 mutant mice embryos [2].
The point of junction of the cardiac tubes do travel caudaly along the anteroposterior axis of the embryo, but that's just the point of junction...
An interesting description of the heart formation can be found in a relatively old textbook: The Early Embryology of the Chick (pp 68-72, fig. 26 & 27, with emphasis for fig 27) [3]
For those who will take the time to read the paper, please pay attention to the part discussing the role of chemotactic forces ; Fleury didn't managed yet to understand morphogenic gradients and that most of them are embedded into the cells and the extracellular matrix.
You may need to go through the whole section about the Chorion formation to understand that Fleury discuss just about the amniotic folds of the chorion and completely ignores the rest of it. It's just that it isn't folded in the right direction for his model. On the other hand the amniotic folds of the chorion are folded in the right way and Fleury carefully studied the ways the meet around a single point. Not only it's weird how he doesn't discuss the lateral part of the amniotic folds (absolutely necessary to form the amnios and the dorsal part of the chorion), but not perpendicular to the anteroposterior axis, but somehow he manage to found a single rate of variation of the radius of an ellipse!
Patten [3] offers a series of diagrams showing the growth and foldings of the somatopleure which form the amnios, from transverse sections of the embryo, in fig 30 and from longitudinal sections in fig. 32. That gives a global image of the tissue growth, in all directions, not just the keyhole presentation Fleury is giving in his article.
While Fleury is aware that the cephalic and caudal amniotic folds appear at different developmental stages, he present their occurrence as being caused by the "extension of the median axis" without explaining what may be the mechanical causes for the delay of almost 24h for the apparition of the caudal amniotic fold. "For the sake of clarity" he present them in the same figure (4b of his paper) as if they occurred in the same time. As much clarity as usually.
1. Heart Field: From Mesoderm to Heart Tube, Radwan Abu-Issa, and Margaret L. Kirby, Annual Review of Cell and Developmental Biology Vol. 23 (2007): 45-68, doi: 10.1146/annurev.cellbio.23.090506.123331
2. Advanced Cardiac Morphogenesis Does Not Require Heart Tube Fusion, Shanru Li, Deying Zhou, Min Min Lu, Edward E. Morrisey, Science Vol 305 (2004): 1619-1622, doi: 10.1126/science.1098674
3. Patten, B.M. (1920). The Early Embryology of the Chick [link to scans in pdf at archive.org]. Philadelphia: P. Blakiston's Son and Co. You can browse through it at UNSW Embryology pages, where the scans of the illustrations are of much better quality.
V. Fleury, Dynamic topology of the cephalochordate to amniote morphological transition: A self-organized system of Russian dolls, C. R. Biologies (2011), doi:10.1016/j.crvi.2010.11.009
Life Science
Comments
Posted by: Glen Davidson
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March 21, 2011 3:11 PM
Pathetic as Fleury's Platonic (or platonician? What the hell is that?) woo is, it does point up the obvious fact that once you leave evolution and other evidence-based science there is a host of possibilities, and not just teh DesignerTM.
Prior to Darwin, Buffon used an appeal to forms as an "explanation" for life that didn't involve God or any other designer. Obviously, Platonic Forms causing life to form as it does is every bit as legitimate to teach in science class as ID or its "criticisms" in biology class, which is to say, not legitimate at all.
Of course it's garbage. I'm still glad to see alternative garbage out there showing that ID is being pushed almost entirely because it is religious, while Platonic woo has varying relationships to religion.
Indeed, one could imagine Fleury's ideas passing Constitutional muster were it being taught in biology classes. Fortunately, this isn't a problem, because non-religious junk ideas don't have a strong constituency pushing it to be taught.
Glen Davidson
Posted by: Bjarne
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March 21, 2011 3:22 PM
Are there any ideas about, what you would like to see as a science-based article? I have some on my German blog, in which I tried to explain some biology stuff to laymen. Not sure if any of these articles are worth to be translated, though (and if my English is well enough for doing so).Posted by: Haruhiist
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March 21, 2011 3:51 PM
Did Fleury, at any point up till now, actually provide a possible source for the forces he describes? Any explanation for the correspondence between genotype and phenotype? Does he account for tissue specialization in any way? Every time I read something about his models, I'm left with more questions than before.
Posted by: coffeeandsci.wordpress.com
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March 21, 2011 4:03 PM
PZ, thank you for tolerating the poor quality, I hope the subject will be palatable for your readers.
There is a second section, a little bit longish, but it may be of interest for the people concerned by the way some articles go through the review process.
It's posted here, but the discussion will stay on Pharyngula.
Posted by: Dhorvath, OM
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March 21, 2011 4:11 PM
So let me see if I have an understanding of this. Fleury is a physicist who has published a paper about the development of embryonic chickens which purports to indicate that tetrapods emerge from some basic mathematic equation of forms? What the hell?
I see the argument as saying that because at some point there is four cells there must end up a four part body plan. Don't trees have four cells at some point? Insects? I could go on, but I imagine there are more species of non-tetrapods than tetrapods that pass through a devolopmental stage where they are made up of only four cells.
Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/eITV6bEl1IqRjWoNfe8SVwtpJ4A8tajdeG.4rplXm9lmng--#2454e
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March 21, 2011 4:13 PM
Trying to figure out what Fleury's up to from a couple of thread comments is pretty hard, especially since the guy writes like the French soldiers in Monty Python ("I fart in your general direction!") I'm pretty sure, however, that he's working along the same lines as the mathematician Rene Thom who, though he's better known for his catastrophe theory, wrote a couple of books about embryogenesis back in the 80s and 90s. Thom and, apparently, Fleury are taking an explicitly formalist approach to understanding development. Thom was very clear about that and insisted that what he was doing was mathematics, not biology or physics, and did not make any testable predictions. Imagine something like what you find in D'Arcy Thompson's Growth and Form only a lot more grand. Fleury sounds a lot less cautious than Thom, though I can attest from personal experience that Thom could be every bit as dismissive of empirical biology as Fleury.
Whether you have any patience for this rather Platonic style of thinking seems to be a function of national culture or, more accurately, intellectual tradition--there have been Anglo-Saxon formalists, after all, and plenty of hard empiricists in Paris. For my part, I don't know whether the qualitative theory of differential equations that is apparently the mathematical basis for Thom/Fleury will ever really illuminate developmental biology but then I don't know if the equally "Platonic" theorizing of the string theorists will ever get in touch with experimental fact. On the available evidence, however, it does seem clear that it will be very hard for the two sides to communicate with each other
Posted by: coffeeandsci.wordpress.com
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March 21, 2011 4:37 PM
@ Haruhiist #3
Nope, until now there is no origin for the forces, there is not even a diagram describing them, except a contradictory set of explanations in 10.4161/org.2.1.1561, where the forces are supposed to tear off the basal membrane of the epiblast and produce the primitive streak, but are latter described as the result of a cellular flow and directed toward the primitive streak.
He concedes some role to the genotype, but only as a moderator of the platonician essence.
@ Dhorvath, The Impersonal You #5
And you haven't mention that human zygote's divisions place the four cells on a tetrahedron, wich explains the egyptians and the pyramids!
Posted by: Dhorvath, OM
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March 21, 2011 4:40 PM
Ah, it's the Egyptian aliens who did it.
Posted by: vincentfleury
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March 21, 2011 5:15 PM
Please find all relevant movies for this article at the address:
http://www.msc.univ-paris-diderot.fr/~vfleury/embryoportal0.html
the movies for the paper are
http://www.msc.univ-paris-diderot.fr/~vfleury/movies/movieheart8.gif
http://www.msc.univ-paris-diderot.fr/~vfleury/movies/movie9.gif
http://www.msc.univ-paris-diderot.fr/~vfleury/movies/movie1accelere8x.gif
I recommend also the recto-verso movies in which the same chicken embryos are filmed simultaneously in dorsal view and ventral view such as :
http://www.msc.univ-paris-diderot.fr/~vfleury/movies/emb169small.gif
http://www.msc.univ-paris-diderot.fr/~vfleury/movies/film145accelere-1sur2-50pct.gif
http://www.msc.univ-paris-diderot.fr/~vfleury/movies/emb168extrait1sur4.gif
have a nice movie show
Best regards
Vincent
Posted by: coffeeandsci.wordpress.com
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March 21, 2011 5:16 PM
@ Glen Davidson #1
Glen, you are almost right. By itself, Fleury's theory have no chance going anywhere.
But it's being used as a scientific theory to push anti-darwinian stances here in France, by an organization heavily funded by the Templeton Foundation. It's perpetual secretary, Jean Staune, call Fleury his Rosetta Stone, justifying the very much ID-like, quantum flapdoodle based, neo-lamarckian flavor of evolution he is advocating. Along with some members and correspondents of the Academy of sciences, which publish C.R. Biologies.
I first heard about Fleury from the publicity Staune was making for one of VF's books, where he presented his theory, complaining that biology journals was rejecting his manuscripts. Staune is a former JTF Advisor Booard member and his mentor in philosophy of sciences is the 2009 Templeton prize recipient, d'Espagnat.
I'm not sure it's inoffensive.
Posted by: Frank b
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March 21, 2011 5:52 PM
It seems to me that embryology is a pretty specialized branch of biology. Is it normal for a physicist to do research and comment on embryology? Or is this the usual godbot tactic of doing an end run around the specialists in the field?
Posted by: coffeeandsci.wordpress.com
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March 21, 2011 5:56 PM
@ vincentfleury #9
Welcome, maybe your are going to explain us what your movies change to the presence of a fully formed amnios and chorion in the 2 weeks bilaminar (thus pre-gastrulation) old human embryo, and how this fit with your hypothesis that the amnios formation is due to the gastrulation movements; you consider them as causal of the formation of the amnios, isn't it?
Posted by: palaeodave
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March 21, 2011 6:00 PM
I would have never guessed that the author of this piece wasn't a native English speaker, so the text isn't so much rough as rather impressive! That was an interesting article. Thanks.
Posted by: Peter Ashby
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March 21, 2011 6:45 PM
Sorry, I gave up on about the tenth missing pleural tense. Also the article takes forever to get to the bloody point. I'm a developmental biologist and I read almost to halfway before I had the faintest idea what the article was about, by which time I don't care any more. The curse of blog posts: no editor.
Posted by: Tort
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March 21, 2011 8:01 PM
There is an old joke about a physicist who is called in by a desperate chicken farmer because his chickens have stopped laying eggs. After days of studying and modelling the problem the physicist calls over the farmer and tells him he has the answer. He begins "Assume a spherical chicken..."
Posted by: David Marjanović
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March 21, 2011 8:58 PM
I'll write a guest post on my thesis topic. I promise. Maybe this weekend.
Bad English. :-|
Fleury makes lots of specifically French errors in his English; "evolutionnary" is one of them.
Seriously? Even the complete lack of third-person -s and the consistent failure to negate past-tense constructions (OldCola uses "didn't did" instead of "didn't do" every single time) didn't tip you off?
Don't be fooled by the big words and long sentences. This is how scientists write bad English.
BTW, OldCola, why do you put "paper" in italics all the time? ~:-|
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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March 21, 2011 9:00 PM
To the surprise of no professional scientist, the unscientific quack and crank VF shows up to attempt to show he is anything other than an unscientific crank. Funny how his evidence all has his name on it. Meaning he is an unscientific crank, loser, poser, quack, and total idjit fuckwit, without any scientific value...
Posted by: DLC
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March 21, 2011 9:45 PM
I'm sorry.
I have a feeling that a biologist set down at a desk containing the blueprints to the CERN large hadron collider would deduce a better explanation for that than Fluery has deduced for biology.
Posted by: Evader
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March 22, 2011 1:47 AM
Why the use of Comic Sans in the lower diagram of the eye?
*facepalm*
Seriously... So many scientists still use Comic Sans. It's as if they never come to Pharyngula!
Posted by: palaeodave
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March 22, 2011 5:20 AM
I had to skim read it because I don't have much time at the moment. Hell of a lot better than what my attempt in French would look like!
Posted by: Naked Bunny with a Whip
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March 22, 2011 7:26 AM
@Evader: Yeah, scientists should really pay more attention to dumb Internet memes when they're designing diagrams. Perhaps they can Rickroll us, too.
Posted by: coffeeandsci.wordpress.com
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March 22, 2011 8:10 AM
@ Peter Ashby #14
My bad, I'am aware of the poor quality of the post. I hope that you have read Fleury's article and you may have remarks on it.
@ David Marjanović #16
papers don't contain cellulose, in opposition to papers :-)
@ Evader #19
The figure comes from a full Comic Sans page.
@ Naked Bunny with a Whip #22
Not that!
Posted by: coffeeandsci.wordpress.com
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March 22, 2011 10:10 AM
@ Nerd of Redhead, OM #17
This time I'm seeking for partners to sign a letter to the editors of C.R. Biologies, would you care to join and maybe help to recruit other people?
Posted by: vincentfleury
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March 23, 2011 7:35 AM
@You should think about it. Especially, please provide a detailed time-lapse movie of epiblast migration movements during formation of the amniotic cavity of viviparous animals.
Posted by: Bernard Bumner
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March 23, 2011 7:52 AM
Vincent, your utter lack of credibility was exposed when you dismissed entire fields of scientific endeavour as bullshit.
There is nothing convincing you could possibly say at this point, other than to admit that you were wrong. (And I'd still need a second opinion before taking your word for it!)
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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March 23, 2011 8:10 AM
Yawn, VF just has no idea how a professional scientist behaves. Once the paper is published, he answers direct questions about it, but otherwise stops defending the paper. Science will either embrace his paper, or like his other one, ignore it. Some folks just can't stand to be ignored.
I'm not in position to help much there. I'm in private industry at a small company. We have no biologists on staff (I'm a chemist). And given VF's known harassment (from PZ) of those who don't bow down to his inane, egotistical, and unprofessional demands, I don't want my real name exposed to him.Posted by: vincentfleury
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March 23, 2011 8:12 AM
how brave.
Posted by: vincentfleury
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March 23, 2011 9:13 AM
For readers who may pass by. Please find herefater an e-mail which was sent to prof. Myers on February 21st, and got no reply.
Prof. Myers,
I was informed that this greek guy who sent you once one of my papers (his name is Antoine Vekris, but he appears on your blog roll as Coffe and sci) is again preparing something with you against me and my work. Probably something like a guest post.
Well well well.
I would respectfully recall you that the last time you followed the suggestions of this fellow, a considerable number of useless insults were said against me, although the scientific content of my work is perfectly sound and accepted by leading experts in the field of vertebrate embryology (you remember : the vortices in embryo development, which you are not aware of). I still expect your apologies.
Now, I read the following sentence by you on your website:
"Coffeeandsci: fear is not a factor. Never has been, never will be. Especially in this case, where I can just tell the kooks to go harrass the actual author"
I would respectfully ask you to explain me the sentence "I can just tell the kooks to go harrass the actual author". Since I do not speak english so well, I do not understand what it means. Are you enough out of your mind to put in print that one purpose of your blog is to harrass people like myself by means of the internet? I cannot believe this, and I surely misunderstood what you mean. You should know that internet harrassment is a crime.
Let me recall you that the last time there was an argument here about me, M. Vekris broadcasted on internet, through your website, my IP number, connexion address and provider etc. which is illegal and one aspect of cyber bulling
I therefore respectfully ask you to criticize my work, if you will, politely, fraternally and without making it any form of harrassment
Salutations
Vincent Fleury
Laboratoire MSC
10 rue Alice Domon et Léonie Duquet
75013 Paris
Tél. Labo: 01 57 27 62 48
Tél. Port: 06 82 28 73 68
Posted by: Bernard Bumner
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March 23, 2011 9:32 AM
Vincent,
Your earlier paper on tetrapod embryogenesis has been cited precisely once - by you.
You are the one that produced the following text reviewing the state of the art:
You have nothing credible to say on the subject.
Posted by: Ed Milnisov
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March 23, 2011 9:36 AM
Fleury:
If those aren't the words of a full-on no-shit crank, I'll eat my beret.
Posted by: Ed Milnisov
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March 23, 2011 9:39 AM
how synchronicitous
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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March 23, 2011 9:48 AM
Fleury, do try to be a professional for once in your life. Go and stay away. Science will do its thing, and ignore this second crank paper too. You should stick to straight physics, especially if you want tenure.
Criticism of your papers is part of science. It can and will be done without your input or permission. That is how science works, as you should know.
Posted by: PZ Myers
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March 23, 2011 9:51 AM
I'm happy to clarify this statement:
The actual author here is OldCola/Vekris. The kook is you, Vincent Fleury. I'm telling you that if you want to complain, you're going to have to go to him, not me.Posted by: desertfroglet
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March 23, 2011 9:52 AM
VF @ 29
No, no, no, Dr Fleury. Allow me to translate. In this case, you're the kook. That is, the potential harrasser not the harrassee.
Hope this helps and hasn't put you in too much of a spin.
Posted by: vincentfleury
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March 23, 2011 9:59 AM
Myers, you are the editor on this website, thereby you are responsible for all form of harrassment on it.
I am pretty sure that reasonable people understand very well that leaving defamatory and insulting statements proliferate on your website, and then withdrawing and saying it is not your business, is not quite a behaviour. Your educational standards are very low.
Now, it is still a mystery to me how it can be that you are not aware of this mas of recent data and work, not only by me but by many others, of the existence of vortex flows in embryo development. Do you want references? For example a recent one :
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0010571
Why do you organize all this defamatory stuff with people, even anonymous one, who none of them is an embryologist, instead of catching up with new scientific stuff?
It really is a mystery for me.
Posted by: Ed Milnisov
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March 23, 2011 9:59 AM
how synchronicitous
Posted by: vincentfleury
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March 23, 2011 10:04 AM
To all people who state defamatory things such as
"Your earlier paper on tetrapod embryogenesis has been cited precisely once - by you."
If you mean the paper :
Clarifying tetrapod embryogenesis, EPJAP
I inform you that in google scholar I already read 6 citations, only 2 by myself.
So please, rewind.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp
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March 23, 2011 10:05 AM
Among a number of other things apparently.
Posted by: coffeeandsci.wordpress.com
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March 23, 2011 10:43 AM
@ vincentfleury #37
You are right, 6 citations, 2 by you, it's a failure of EPJAP (or Crossref) to grab citations that mislead me (still of EPJAP page 23.03.2011), I'll check these citations.
Posted by: Bernard Bumner
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March 23, 2011 10:58 AM
Well, indeed I apologise.
So it was cited 4 times by independent authors?
And so we have:
1) Differential Geometry Based Multiscale Models (a technical modelling paper by your only fan outside of France; an author with no apparent expertise in embryogenesis, proposing "a differential geometry based multiscale paradigm for the description and analysis of aqueous chemical, biological systems, such as protein complex, molecular motors, ion channels, and PEM fuel cells").
2)Three simulators for growing artificial creatures (a modelling paper which ignores biology in a very similar manner to your own).
3)Morphogen positioning by the means of a hydrodynamic engine (by the same authors as number 2, with the same problems as number 2, and some copy/paste reuse of text between the two which is slightly dubious - anyway, not a third independent authorship).4)3)An assessment of morphogenetic fluctuation during reproductive phase change in Arabidopsis (which, if I were reviewing, I would ask why they felt tetrapod embryogensis was relevant to their conclusions at all - and if so, why they ignored the entire body of research that exists other than your own).I was indeed wrong that it had been cited only once, especially since you yourself had cited it
twice.
However, I remain unconvinced that your "...work is perfectly sound and accepted by leading experts in the field of vertebrate embryology...". Perhaps they have all forgotten to cite your paper, or maybe no leading experts in the field of vertebrate embryology have published in the last two years?
Posted by: coffeeandsci.wordpress.com
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March 23, 2011 11:00 AM
@ vincentfleury #37
You discussing morphogens movements? Seems that the guys haven't understood your theory, you should contact them ASAP :-)Morphogen positioning by the means of a hydrodynamic engine, Cussat-Blanc S. et al.
Three simulators for growing artificial creatures, Cussat-Blanc, S. et al. is the same as the previous, just different title for the final version.
An assessment of morphogenetic fluctuation during reproductive phase change in Arabidopsis, Pouteau S. et al.
OK, it was suggested, so what?Differential Geometry Based Multiscale Models, Wei G-W.
OK, a mathematician finding a mathematical model interesting. About the "impressive success" thingy, I wonder what he means exactly. Probably that he is in the right lane of research. I'll ask.Posted by: Bernard Bumner
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March 23, 2011 11:16 AM
They aren't the same, and given that both are publically available, some sort of clarrifying note that one is a version of the other or reuses large portions of the other would have been appropriate or advisable to avoid any suspicion of self-plagiarism.
Posted by: coffeeandsci.wordpress.com
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March 23, 2011 11:17 AM
@ Bernard Bumner #40
Argh, you've been faster :-)
Posted by: vincentfleury
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March 23, 2011 11:34 AM
@Well, indeed I apologise.
If this is sincere, I accept your apology.
Starting to sort out this or that citation sounds a continuation of a childish behaviour to me, not very dign of scientists.
Please be more careful with repeating what M. Vekris, and even M. Myers write.
The general way of discussion of people like M. Vekris, and others, around here has a tremendously bad breadth.
Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist
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March 23, 2011 11:40 AM
You're mothers a whore and you spelling sucks.
Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist
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March 23, 2011 11:44 AM
Also who the hell is M. Myers?
Is this the Red suited conquering version of PZ?
(PZ dressed as Raul Julia from Street Fighter)
"OF COURSE!"
Posted by: coffeeandsci.wordpress.com
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March 23, 2011 11:45 AM
@ Bernard Bumner #42
Correct, two different papers, with the same authors, in the same order, and with the first phrase of the abstract identical.
It's the last part that fooled my system. Should take that in account for the next version.
Thank you.
Posted by: Bernard Bumner
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March 23, 2011 11:53 AM
I was merely trying to dissect your claim that your work is "...accepted by leading experts in the field of vertebrate embryology...".
Just as your original defence of your paper went too far, and made extraordinary and unevidenced claims, so you do here.
The reasons that we here are taking an interest in your work is no longer merely that there seems to be scientific flaws in your treatment of biology, but because of your own behaviour and reaction to PZ's critique of your earlier paper. You simply have not been willing to accept criticism, respond in an appropriate manner, or to allow consensus to develop organically.
Instead, you demand to be taken seriously, and continue to loudly claim that real questions about your scientific work are acts of personal defamation. It appears paranoid and looks like a pathological need for validation.
Indeed, I was not. When I claimed a single citation, it was because that was all that CrossRef had captured. Once again, you assume that all criticism is ultimately derived from Vekris and Myers, when this is not so. Commenters here are perfectly well able to form their own questions and opinions about your work and persona.
In other words: you are bringing these things upon yourself.
Posted by: coffeeandsci.wordpress.com
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March 23, 2011 12:53 PM
I would like to clarify something here, for Vincent Fleury and everybody else.
On the one hand, my critics are directed against Fleury's theory, not only for its low quality, if any amount of quality should be conceded, but essentially for the reasons I presented above #10.
Fleury was promoted by Staune and accepted the promotion, probably due to their common interest on platonism. And he kindly defended his friend of the moment as much as he was able to do, until the association started to be a burden for him.
On the other hand, Fleury, who is whining here as if he was personally harassed, made it impossible for me to continue the discussion about Staune's (see #10) anti-darwinian stance in a public forum, by not respecting a deal to stop the discussion about his theory, and cross-posting in a completely different thread.
Maybe there is something that seems directed against the person of a researcher/author able to infamously extrapolate his results feeding his readers with imaginary situations and conclusions. But really, it is not personal, it's against the methods he is employing.
And eventually I will continue to comment on his work if I think there are reasons to do so.
Posted by: coffeeandsci.wordpress.com
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March 23, 2011 12:58 PM
@ Nerd of Redhead, OM #26
Never mind, I decided to contact the director and some of the editorial stuff by myself. I do understand that people, and you are far from being alone, don't want to be Fleury's target.
I'll just test what kind/amount of respect have the guys at C.R. Biologies for their reputation. And report here.
Posted by: vincentfleury
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March 23, 2011 12:58 PM
I don't know who you are, and I care very little, but at least you made clear that you are not an expert in vertebrate embryology, nor is M. Vekris, nor is PZ Myers. So bringing into the discussion little cartoons from textbooks or counting citations is so looooooooooow. A normal situation between scientists would be that any of you presents his own evidence and say well I see this and that and it is in conflict with what you find etc. Instead of that "doctus cum libro" and "cum interneto" and that's all.I.e. very little.
As I said : please show me the time lapse video of the epiblast movement during formation of the chorion/amnios in a mammal, so we can compare the vector fields of movement.
I myself make freely available the movies on my website, of in vivo chicken development seen from different point of views, magnifictions etc. to the point even that M. Vekris starts putting on youtube his own analysis of my movies (would you believe that), which is so badly made that it is really a shame for him (vraiment très très très mauvais).
So in the end, how can possibly PZ Myers be in any way interested and proud in what he is doing with these posts?
Is there any one out there who is actually at the University of Morris and tell me whether this fellow is just the shame of the faculty or what?
Posted by: Bernard Bumner
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March 23, 2011 1:11 PM
Vincent, if you wish to let the science stand or fall on its own merit, then do so. If you claim to be above this level, then act as though you are.
On the other hand, if you continue to throw yourself into these fights, then do not be surprised when others fight back.
As to PZ Myers interest in your work - it seems to me that his initial interest did not extend beyond critiquing your earlier paper as a developmental biologist. It was you who then continued to argue beyond the point to which it was reasonable. After that, I can only assume that he enjoys the sport.
None of which can change the fact that there are serious concerns about your treatment of your earlier paper, and your response since.
Why do you continue to embarass yourself and destroy your credibility this way?
Posted by: coffeeandsci.wordpress.com
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March 23, 2011 1:13 PM
@ vincentfleury #24
Movies are cool and I do love them. But they aren't always necessary. One can get the equivalent of time-lapse images by painstakingly gathering data from dissections and histology.
Now what? Are you going to add to your list of bullshit the work of embryologists?
Posted by: vincentfleury
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March 23, 2011 1:19 PM
Sir
i am sorry to inform you that it is M. Myers who starts and restarts things against me.
You, and him, will for ever find "concern" in my work as long as you do not have a small look to all papers dealing with vortices in embryo development. I care very little about you, or all the insulting people you find here. I care when people like Vekris start contacting my hierarchy or the editors etc., and also when distinguished biology professors, who might even be on my side politically, expose such a gigantic level of ignorance about current scientific progress (not even mentionning that he does not even know the size of a human embryo), up to the point that he insults me, while we could, or even should, aswell be exchanging students or having interesting discussions at meetings instead of this. So voilà : I spend my time working, and generating good data on biomechanics of development, and you know what : there are other articles coming soon. But once in a while I discover this garbage here, which is nourished constantly by people of bad will.
Posted by: vincentfleury
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March 23, 2011 2:29 PM
whoever writes that data from histology
is an equivalent of time-lapse images is just forfeit.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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March 23, 2011 6:55 PM
No VF, PZ is only responsible for what PZ says. You are responsible for your harassment of those who treat your inane papers with the proper respect...or lack thereof, considering the unscientific nature therein.Thanks. I would be interested to hear what the editors have to say. I would have no problem signing with my name and title, if there was no way it could get back to VF. I don't have PZ's patience for dealing with psychotic cranks.He's not a shame to his faculty like you are. You are a crank, who doesn't follow the rules and protocols of science. He is a respected educator. If you can't figure out the difference, there is no talking to you.VF, take the criticism given here and learn from it. Apparently you stopped learning a while back on such matters. It shows. And is why we LAUGH AT YOU.
Posted by: Ing: PhD Trollologist
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March 23, 2011 11:08 PM
"To you the day I critiqued your paper may have been the most important in your life, but to me...it was Tuesday"~M. Myers
Seriously who is M. Myers?
Posted by: coffeeandsci.wordpress.com
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March 24, 2011 1:22 PM
@ vincentfleury #55
Somebody here thinks embryology was born with time-lapse movies. Is it due to a deficiency to integrate information?@ Nerd of Redhead, OM #56
Sorry for responding so late, it's grant proposal week and the deadline is tomorrow.
Thank you *very much* for your offer, but I can't guarantee confidentiality.
Please feel comfortable with that, you are the fourth person inhibited by Fleury's attitude, and I do understand you.
The only message of Fleury to my boss was promptly trashed, as he doesn't care about my personal activities, and lately he bursted in laugh just after I mentioned headless cephalochordata.
@ Ing: OM: Spreader of… #57
M. is the abbreviation for Monsieur, so that's Monsieur Myers, instead of Mr. Myers.
On this, and only this, and nothing but this, I'll side with Vincent. It gives PeeZee an exotic flavor.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo
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March 24, 2011 1:34 PM
About the 'headless cephalochordate' thing, in fairness: A major diference between cephalochordates and craniates has long been summarized as "the vertebrates' new head".
Here's a couple of relatively recent such usages:
http://www.cell.com/neuron/retrieve/pii/S0896627303001612
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10867629
Posted by: coffeeandsci.wordpress.com
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March 24, 2011 2:12 PM
@ Sven DiMilo #59
I agree for the old brain in a new head description of the developed nervous system of craniates. But cephalo-, from κεφαλή, means head. Just like in cephalopoda, right?
Who's gonna dare say cephalopoda don't have a head, in this blog? I'll send him Gus Portokalos to deal with, my cousin.
Posted by: vincentfleury
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March 24, 2011 4:14 PM
Cephalochordata
Cephalochordates are non-vertebrate members of the Phylum Chordata, having diverged from the evolutionary line leading to the vertebrates before the end of the Precambrian. A cephalochordate has no head, a transparent body like a leaf with a notochord running from end to end, and rows of muscle on either side by which to wriggle, swim or bury itself. They are commonly known as lancelets.
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Cathaymyrus is an Early Cambrian cephalochordate known from the Chengjiang locality in Yunnan Province, China.[1] It had a long segmented body with no distinctive head.
wikipedia
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Lancelet : There is no distinct head and no paired fins (at http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/cephalochordate).
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« céphalochordés : Absence de tête différenciée (définition des Acrâniens). »
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The Cephalochordates, such as the lancelet, are little animals that look like fish and are shaped like a spindle. They have no head, no fins
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amphioxus, plural amphioxi, or amphioxuses, also called lancelet, any of certain members of the invertebrate subphylum Cephalochordata of the phylum Chordata.
Amphioxi are seldom more than 8 cm (3 inches) long and resemble small, slender fishes without eyes or definite heads.
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Cephalochordates. e.g. amphioxus. 3-5cm long, pointed at both ends, short post-anal tail, no head, burrows in sand – either way round
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after a 5 minutes search
Posted by: coffeeandsci.wordpress.com
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March 25, 2011 4:45 AM
@vincentfleury #61
That simple.Great Dr Fleury,
I see you started a census of people who got it wrong the same way you did. That will help you not feeling alone and give you a nice occupation: contact them and explain what they got wrong and provide the etymology of the subphylum's name.
You may have noted the slight transition from "no distinct head" to "no head", memes mutations, a small deletion here.
Good luck with that, duty calls you.
And let me help you, you can copy/paste that
And of course, they come without vertebrae, the subphylum is distinct of the one of the vertebrates.
Posted by: vincentfleury
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March 25, 2011 6:09 AM
The paper is not a linguist's paper about what name should be given to the oral opening of cephalochordates, found in the anterior region of the body.
It is a paper about the dynamics of the embryonic tissue, filmed in vivo. Your semantic questions are not very interesting. Whether an animal anterior region which exhibits no neck, no jaw, no nose, no eyes, no skull should or should not still be called a "head" is not as scientific question.
Reasonable people understand this. And by the way, it is precisely because the dynamics of evolution from cephalochordats to craniates is not understood, that these wordings are unclear.
Why don't you stop all this, and contribute scientifically to these questions, if they interest you so much?
Posted by: coffeeandsci.wordpress.com
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March 25, 2011 8:00 AM
@ vincentfleury #63
Check #1 & #10@ all, VF monitor report
VF wrote to my boss because he laughed at headless cephalochordata!
He didn't knew who wrote that, now he knows.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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March 25, 2011 8:07 AM
Yawn, VF is still showing the world why he is an unprofessional crank. Once he posted his supplemental material, if he was a professional, he would have disappeared from the thread. And let science and scientists do their jobs.
Then maybe come back later, in a couple of weeks or a month and see what he missed with his paper. That is, learn from his mistakes. Learning requires acknowledgment that one can make mistakes. VF seems to think he is immune from mistakes. That is how an unprofessional crank thinks, and always must defend his mistakes even in the face of conclusive evidence.
VF, be a professional. Go away, and let science work. Learn from your mistakes. But you can't, which is why you repeat them.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo
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March 25, 2011 8:25 AM
Stupid argument. Just because whoever named the subphylum emphasized the notochord extending all the way to the anterior end doesn't mean that cephalochordates have a "head" in any meaningful sense of the term. There's a mouth there, there's an anterior swelling of the nerve cord that is homologous to (part of?) the vertebrate brain, and that's it. Everything in a fish that we call the "head", except for the mouth and end of the spinal cord, is essentially tacked onto the front end of a cephalochordate.
If you want to call an animal's front end the 'head' no matter what then they got one; if you're talking about something homologous to vertebrate heads they don't (in fact, if you're talking about something functionally analogous to vertebrate heads, or arthropod heads or annelid heads, they don't).
M. Fleury, an actual scientific question if you don't mind rising above the trivia:
If I grant you the existence of vortical cell movements in chicken embryos, what is your claim as to the proximate cause of those movements?
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp
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March 25, 2011 8:33 AM
Come on Sven, you know flounders have heads.
Posted by: vincentfleury
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March 25, 2011 8:40 AM
@ 66 to be published.
Posted by: coffeeandsci.wordpress.com
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March 25, 2011 10:27 AM
@ Sven DiMilo #66
I don't speak of anything analogous to the vertebrate head indeed, I'm talking about heads in general, I even mentioned cephalopods #60. They do have heads, just like cephalochordata.
You gave us links presenting the vertebrates head as a new head, making the difference from old heads, but heads already. Right?
What would be your meaningful definition of the term head that would make any cephalo-whatever headless, despite the fact that cephalo- indicates the presence of a head?