paleonet Yet more deceitful crap from Hecht

[John Jackson <strangetruther@xxxxxxxxx>]

Science, it seems it must be repeated yet again, is
about comparing theories, and though we may talk in
other terms from time to time, we must repeatedly
return to base, and never stray too far from the
essential theme.

For Jeff Hecht though, science reporting is all about
pandering to those on his list of "important experts",
doing nothing but repeat what they say (why his
employers needed someone with a science degree to do
that I'm not sure).  But for him, it is not enough
merely to perform a free PR service for those who
provide his material; it is also necessary that all
other ideas should be censored.

Even when he can comment in the dml on the new
Archaeopteryx specimen  -
http://dml.cmnh.org/2005Dec/msg00024.html - "Greg Paul
was on the right track when he suggested that
dromeosaurs were flightless birds", he can't quite
find it within him to let the public even hear of
this, a theory he has steadfastly blockaded for as
long as he has been taking "New Scientist" money.  And
when he does mention secondary flightlessness amongst
so-called "non-avian theropods", he immediately
rubbishes it by suggesting Greg Paul is having doubts
and admitting it's a complex issue, just as good
creationists suggest ongoing work in evolutionary
science implies doubt in the basic principle.

To analyse the last sentence of his dml posting:

"We need a lot more analysis,..."

His idea of analysis, creating cladograms produced in
the simplest style imaginable, that was problematic
the day it was invented, has never been convincingly
justified empirically or calibrated for data like that
from dino-birds, and simply produces a range of
results depending on which variation of the "Garbage
In - Garbage Out" principle you favour.  Use of these
cladogram programs in scientific theorisation involves
areas of expertise that not Hecht nor any professional
dino-bird palaeontologist have either qualifications
in nor, most importantly, any adequate understanding
of.  Relying on these primitive cladograms to generate
theories of dino-bird phylogeny, and then selling them
to the public as fact, is claiming an expertise you
don't have, which is the definition of charlatanism,
and is particularly ironic when combined with the
steadfast ignoring of those more qualified, and even
world authorities in the fields concerned.

We don't need to reuse the same useless methods of
analysis, we need Better analysis.  For example, the
paper on the 10th Archaeopteryx in this week's
"Science" has a cladogram of the most bird-like forms.
 All raw cladograms are directionless. 
Palaeontologists usually give them "direction" by
arbitrarily sticking in the fossil from outside the
group they have already decided was closest to the
group's ancestry.  This then lets the cladogram say
what they want it to say. 

A much better method is to use time to give direction
by selecting as a root the middle of the arc (= branch
within the tree) that minimises the total of ghost
lineages - lines of supposed ancestry mysteriously
bereft of fossils.  This way you can even keep your
precious cladogram if you want, you just look at it
through the right end of the instrument for a change. 
This approach can be justified by experimentation,
whereas sticking in your own outgroup... well it can't
even be tested.  A lot still depends on which fossils
even within the main group you include, but some
integrity and accuaracy would have been added.

However, even in the recent cladogram, we now see two
birds whose most recent common ancestor appears to
have given rise to troodonts and dromaeosaurs (inc
e.g. Velociraptor).  If true, this tree implies one or
both of:  
	troodonts and dromaeosaurs had flying ancestors (the
theory Hecht's behaviour suggests he doesn't want the
public to find out about);
	flight evolved more than once.

Hecht cannot annoy the authors of the paper by writing
in "New Scientist" that the first is a possible
implication, since they came no closer to saying it
than suggesting that troodonts and droms. might be
birds.  So after decades of insisting that simplistic
cladistics provides the only answer, when they come up
with a cladogram that suggests the parsimonious
(simplest) answer is that troodonts and droms were
secondarily flightless, they suddenly abandon their
methodology in order to keep faith with the answer
they first thought of.

(The paper also has the flaws that Confuciusornis is
said to have uncinate processes, which those who have
studied the most examples say not one specimen shows,
and also the blatant lie (the stock in trade of
employed dino-bird workers) that "These observations
provide further evidence for the theropod ancestry of
birds", a claim whose folly I've exposed repeatedly.)

 "...particularly with birds added to the picture, as
well as more fossils."

Long used as an item of cheery chat, the phrase "we
need more fossils" is actually untrue.  Although ever
more fossils would be nice, there are some questions
that we actually have more than enough fossils to
answer right now, but what we lack is scientific nous
and intellectual integrity.  What remains woefully
true is that we desperately need more dino-bird
professionals and journalists with an adequate working
knowledge of the philosophy and process of science. 
We need more philosophers.

 "It should be fun for all." 

I'm afraid it won't be very much fun for you Jeff when
the public begins to recognise you as having taken up
to half a million dollars or more over the last decade
or two by taking them for a ride, and in a competitive
field you've done worse than almost anyone else.  Your
behaviour isn't as damaging as the Lysenko affair
because not knowing the truth about dino-birds won't
lead to starvation, but you've put more effort in and
taken more unjustified reward out than the
perpetrators  of the Piltdown hoax.


		
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