University of Bristol

Mike Taylor

My last post ([Unhappy thoughts on student projects at SVPCA
2015](http://svpow.com/2015/09/04/unhappy-thoughts-on-student-projects-at-svpca-2015/))
was stupid and ill-judged. As a result of very helpful conversations
with a senior palaeontologist (who was much more courteous about it that
he or she needed to be), **I have decided to retract that article**
rather than editing it further to clarify. I deeply wish I'd never
posted it, and I offer my apologies to everyone I insulted.

First, and most importantly, to people presenting projects under the
influence of nerves, which I misinterpreted as a lack of interest in
their own projects. Nervousness particularly affects people giving their
first talks --- an effect I should have allowed for. It's awful to think
that what I wrote may have been discouraging to people taking first
steps into palaeo.

Second, to supervisors who felt that the "roll four dice" section in the
middle of the post was aimed at them. All I can say is that it wasn't. I
had no-one in mind when I wrote that: I was just so seduced by the
comical imagery of generating a project by rolling dice that I wrote
it down without thinking through how it would be interpreted.

Did I have good intentions? I honestly did. Did I have legitimate
concerns about the ubiquitous application of techniques that are not
always appropriate, and whose results are not always interpreted with a
suitable degree of scepticism? I think so. But *clearly* I should have
discussed those concerns privately with more involved people, rather
than spilling my brains all over the blog. I welcome the increasing
availability of techniques that allow us to bring numerical rigour to
our palaeobiological speculations. (I could discuss in more detail when
and how I think those techniques should be used, but that's for another
day. My purpose here is to apologise, not to justify myself.)

In short, I had a very bad day at the office on Friday, and I hate the
idea that in my carelessness I could have hurt anyone other than myself.
To those in that category, I can only ask your forgiveness; and promise
to think more *before* blogging in future.


My last post (Unhappy thoughts on student projects at SVPCA 2015) was stupid and ill-judged. As a result of very helpful conversations with a senior palaeontologist (who was much more courteous about it that he or she needed to be),
<strong>
 I have decided to retract that article
</strong>
rather than editing it further to clarify. I deeply wish I’d never posted it, and I offer my apologies to everyone I insulted.

I got almost everything wrong in my last post: I’m sorry.

Western University of Health Sciences

Matt Wedel

By now you’ll recognize this as NHM 46870, a minor celebrity in the world of pneumatic sauropod vertebrae. Darren has covered the history of the specimen before, and in the last post he showed photographs of both this chunk and its other half. He also briefly discussed the Air Space Proportion (ASP) of the specimen, and I’ll expand on that now.

Publicaciones de Rogue Scholar

I got almost everything wrong in my last post: I’m sorry.

NHM 46870 Strikes Back: ASP