Administrative
laelaps | June 5, 2008As I've been working on my book on evolution I've been posting updates about my progress (most of those updates can be found here), and I am certainly pleased to note that reactions have generally been positive. I am truly grateful for all the support I've received from readers, fellow bloggers, writers, and friends, the encouragement definitely motivating me to keep working. I have received some critical comments, however, and I feel that one in particular requires a detailed response. Responding to my last update, commenter James wrote;
Brian, what are you thinking? You don't even have an…
pharyngula | June 4, 2008Having reviewed the extensive evidence of obstreperous obtuse obnoxiousness, I have made a decision in the case of Pharyngulistas v. Kenny: summary termination without appeal.
And there was much rejoicing.
pharyngula | June 4, 2008Man, I'm away on vacation and you rowdies get all raucus and rude in the comments. The powers-that-be at Seed have received a complaint about your heinous behavior, and have asked me (politely, and with assurances that I have full control over how to handle this situation) to address it. Here is the complaint:
Dear Sir/Madam
I wish to complain about offensive sexual language directed towards me on one of your blogs. I have included the full quote below and a link to the offensive comment. I would appreciate your attention on this matter as I consider this deeply offensive.
Thank you
Brenda…
laelaps | June 4, 2008Given that I have 23 single-spaced pages written for my human evolution chapter (which is about as long as the essay I wrote that was included in The Open Laboratory) I suppose I should be fairly pleased with myself. The truth of the matter is that I am not; I still have to get to major discoveries of fossil hominids post-1920, integrate evidence from primatology, and explain the genetic similarity between our species and living apes. It would be all-too-easy to let the chapter become a book by itself, and the sheer volume of information that needs to fit within a chapter will definitely test…
evolvingthoughts | June 2, 2008
The snivelling little boy, Mats Envall, who thinks that walking into someone's living room and pissing on the floor is acceptable behaviour, has forced me to make comments require my manual authentication. I am sorry for the rest of you, but we are up to 122 spams from the idiot. Those who routinely comment I can mark as authenticated in general using IP numbers, so that might take the sting off it.
So far we have been relatively civilised here - I'm sorry that this troll has made things less pleasant for you all. I bet this is how Envall got his paper published, by effectively bullying…
laelaps | June 2, 2008My time writing was cut a little short this weekend (my wife rescued me from the doldrums by suggesting we take a late-night trip to the beach) but I still was able to flesh out the sections dealing with the early history of paleoanthropology. I have the feeling that I'm going to have to edit both down (I'm already at the 19 page mark for the chapter and I haven't even gotten to A. afarensis yet, much less Orrorin and Sahelanthropus) but I'm going to leave that for another time. Indeed, the human evolution chapter may end up splitting into two at some point as there is so much material to…
laelaps | May 31, 2008"Do we really need another book about evolution?" I ask myself this question almost every day as I pore over the stacks of books and papers cluttering my apartment, the masses of literature forming a sort of scientific strata. It has been about two years since I first started saying that I was working on a book about evolution (I figured that if I believed I could do it I would eventually become motivated enough to do something about it) but for much of that time my efforts at actually producing anything were pitiful. It is true that I had more enthusiasm than knowledge during the first…
evolvingthoughts | May 30, 2008
So we managed to attract 5 local PZombies (Craig, you are in trouble for not turning up!) on a wet Brisbane night. We had some interesting discussions (which I fear means that others listened to me nonstop) over beer. It's nice to know that those of us who are in thrall to our cephalod overlords are not alone in our struggle to conquer the world and make it safe for molluscs. But to show the superiority of cephalopods over chordates, watch this:
laelaps | May 27, 2008The running for the top three entries of the Boneyard XX contest was extremely close, so close that I really had no idea who was going to win until I could add up all the votes. The winners are;
1st Place: Traumador
2nd Place: Tie! Emile and Scarlet Seraph
3rd Place: Nemo RamjetCongratulations to all the winners, and many thanks to everyone who participated in making the Boneyard XX a special event. If the winners would e-mail me I will soon have their prizes on their way to them.
evolvingthoughts | May 26, 2008
One of the things about having one's own blog is that one gets to say what sorts of behaviours are acceptable by commenters. My commenters are generally a pretty nice bunch of people, often clever (hey, they read me) and polite even as the issues get hot. Occasionally, one is not. When this happens, the commenter gets warned, and if they really don't get it, banned. For the first time this has happened. Even odder, it's not a creationist, but a fanatic of another stripe: Mats Enval, the anticladist. Enval's modus operandi consisted of making assertions about how illogical cladism, or…
evolvingthoughts | May 24, 2008
Nothing is more excruciating to me than to see myself and hear myself. It's even worse when I'm up against someone who presents so much better than I do. So watch Paul Myers (I think that's how they spell his name) and me talk about Stuff at Bloggingheads.TV. The video is terrible (that's my fault; we should have recorded our own video and sent it to the editors, instead we recorded each other by way of an Australia-USA link that was routed, I fear, via Mongolia and Finland, using packets carried by mules). I'm out of sync. But it doesn't matter - it's voice with some moving pictures, that's…
laelaps | May 23, 2008Time flies when I'm not working on my book. The past month has been especially hectic and, in many respects, nerve wracking, so my goal of being "professional" and writing every day went out the window. I successfully survived the spring semester, however, and now I can devote more of my time to completing this project.
I spent most of yesterday refreshing my memory about horses and their evolution (appropriately enough, a new special exhibit on horses just opened at the AMNH). I knew from the very beginning of the project that I would have to include a chapter on horse evolution, but I could…
laelaps | May 22, 2008Today I'm working on my book (hint: Gaudry and Hipparion), but here's a few links and other tidbits of interest for your consumption;
Indy 4 is out today. Now where is my fedora....
This week's issue of Nature is featuring a brand new transitional temnopondyl. I'll be blogging about this one soon.
Someone has put the documentary "My Pet Dinosaur" up on YouTube. Some bits seriously pissed me off (Dinosaurs wouldn't have continued to evolve?! And what's that, the Dinosauroid? Gah!), but I'll save a fuller critique for another day.
Many congratulations to John Wilkins on the recent sale of his…
evolvingthoughts | May 20, 2008
OK, so it seems there are several readers of PZ Maggle who live in or around Brisbane. Some are even on or near the UQ St Lucia campus. So we should meet and pay homage to the Great Tentacled One. Leave suggested times and places in the comments. So far the best suggestion is Genie's Cafe in the IMB building.
laelaps | May 20, 2008[Note: I've received all the papers but one, which I may be able to get directly from the author. Many thanks to everyone who sent in papers; hopefully I'll soon be able to share some good news about the end to which I'm using these resources.]
Many thanks to everyone who sent me the Ichnos paper this past weekend; I will be blogging about dinosaurs and dermestid beetles soon enough. At the moment, though, I have a somewhat bigger project that I'm working on (but that must remain under wraps for the moment) involving T.H. Huxley and his thoughts on the relationship between birds and dinosaurs…
pharyngula | May 18, 2008It was commencement weekend here in lovely Morris, Minnesota, and I spent yesterday in a funny outfit posing for parents and going to commencement parties, and this morning was spent ferrying #2 Son to the Twin Cities for his long bus ride back to Madison. It's time to buckle down and finish my grading now.
But on a happy note, I think we can safely close the nominations for this month's Molly already: it's a landslide, and I don't think Kenny has a chance of catching up, and also we should celebrate the winner's birthday somehow. The Molly for May 2008 goes to Etha Williams.
pharyngula | May 16, 2008
We're all caught up on the new Molly inductees: for March, it's Glen Davidson, and for April, brokenSoldier. Give them your attention when they comment!
Of course, now we have to gather nominations for May. Who are the commenters who make you perk up and think? Name them in the comments to this post.
laelaps | May 16, 2008I'm sorry to say that things with Rutgers are still a mess, but the spring semester is over and now I've got about three months to work on some of my projects. There's a lot I want to do, but most importantly I want to become a better writer and photographer. Towards that end I have set a few goals for this summer, and even though I've stated them before I thought that I would re-iterate what I want to accomplish;
#1) Finish my book. - I haven't added anything new to my book in a long time, mostly because final exams were much more of a priority. Now that I have much more time to devote to…
laelaps | May 15, 2008I just realized something; I'm not going to be able to put up the special edition of The Boneyard #20 this Saturday as planned. Being that I'll be somewhere along the shores of Delaware trying to photograph some horseshoe crabs I won't be able to see all the last-minute submissions and put them up. So, instead of putting it up on Saturday, I'm going to post the carnival on Monday. That gives everyone who wants to put in an entry a few more days to come up with something (all entires will have to be in before 10AM eastern time on Monday). I've received a few wonderful submissions so far, but I…
laelaps | May 15, 2008Later today I'll be posting the next installment of my series of interviews with paleontologists, this time asking Mike Taylor to tell us a little about PhyloCode, strange sauropods, and the present "Aetogate" controversy (just to start). It's another long, detail-rich interview, so be sure to check back later today to have a look.