Friday, April 23, 2010

Pickering's papers in hand- A review

Continuing Pickering Month, I thought I'd take a break from the "Liassaurus" entry to write a different kind of post.  Stephan sent me copies of several of his papers this week, which means I'm one of a handful of people to own them.  Many of you are probably wondering just what does a Pickering paper look like?  Well now's your chance to find out.  I'd also like to thank Stephan for (finally) sending me the papers, as it took quite a bit of time on his part.  So, the papers I received can be divided into a few categories.

One is an in progress version (from 2003) of his bibliography of Richard Owen, with illustrations by Knight and Stout.  Simple enough.

Another is a flier for Mutanda Dinosaurologica, Pickering's in progress book.  This lists the species covered in the book, which consists of all the standard Pickering theropods, as well as Liliensternus, Sarcosaurus, Elaphrosaurus, Magnosaurus as Megalosaurus nethercombensis, Megalosaurus bucklandii, Eustreptospondylus, Metriacanthosaurus parkeri, Streptospondylus, Poekilopleuron and Proceratosaurus.  Presumably these were the taxa redescribed by Welles and Powell for their European theropod review which was never published, and I assume that the Extract from Archosauromorpha papers described below are basically the kind of content that will be included (albeit with possible revisions) if Pickering ever publishes.


Cover of volume about Dilophosaurus "breedorum."

Six are titled "An Extract from: Archosauromorpha: Cladistics and Osteologies".  Two such papers were mentioned by Olshevsky on the DML, about Dilophosaurus "breedorum" and Megalosaurus bucklandii.  Pickering has not sent me the latter yet.  The others I received are- "Merosaurus", Elaphrosaurus? "philtippettensis", "Altispinax" "lydekkerhueneorum", "Walkersaurus" and Maleevosaurus.  Two (about Maleevosaurus and "Altispinax") are stated to be volume 14, the others lack numbers.  They all begin with photocopied copyright certificates, though of course no one doubts much of the material was written by Welles and Powell in 1974, 1993, etc..  The problem is that the ICZN doesn't care about copyright, but rather whether it's "produced in an edition containing simultaneously obtainable copies by a method that assures numerous identical and durable copies."  The content itself is basically what you see from Pickering in his comments here- basic info, lists of previous references to the specimen in the literature, generally problematic diagnoses, then a very Welles-ian description.  You'll recognize the format if you've read Welles' 1984 Dilophosaurus osteology- descriptions of each element focusing on measurements of landmarks, followed by comparisons to similar taxa but without any phylogenetic context.  The Maleevosaurus paper breaks the mold a bit in that it has an extensive set of measurement tables instead of a description.  There are quite a few original photos taken by Welles in 1974 I presume, and original illustrations of Dilophosaurus and the "Merosaurus" type femur.  The other line drawings are taken from previously published sources.  One common issue I have with these taxa is several are based on non-overlapping elements with no justification for their referral.  I've already noted this for "Merosaurus" for instance, but the Altispinax paper is a particularily egregious example.  The proposed lectotype is the Becklespinax holotype of three high-spined dorsals.  Yet referred specimens include teeth, metatcarpals, metatarsals (such as the Valdoraptor holotype), pedal phalanges, etc..  Pickering doesn't identify the taxon past Tetanurae, so can't even use a rationale like Benson's that the large Taynton Limestone theropod material is all megalosaurid or compatible with such an identification.  Similar issues are seeimingly true for "brevis", "reynoldsi" and "philtippettensis".


Page 12 of King Kong: Unauthorized Jewish Fractals in Philopatry, including section naming Allosaurus "whitei" and Tyrannosaurus "stanwinstonorum."

The final object is a pamphlet that I believe was distributed with an issue of Prehistoric Times in 1996, which gives it the highest and most official distribution of any Pickering work.  This is the famous "King Kong: Unauthorized Jewish Fractals in Philopatry. A Fractal Scaling in Dinosaurology Project."  It's thirteen pages long, and is quite Pickering-esque if I do say so.  The first four pages are confusingly labeled as advertisements, though they don't differ qualitatively from the rest.  Large pictures relating to Jurassic Park 2: The Lost World and King Kong are strewn throughout, and the text is divided into nine chapters, a prologue (between chapters 6 and 7), a postscript and an epilogue.  The first six chapters are commentary on The Lost World, while the prologue and chapters 7-9 are commentary on King Kong.  They are not scientific writings by any means, though they would be fine (if verbose) articles in a theater magazine.  The postscript is partly a speculation of dinosaur mating habits based on birds, which is flawed by the large (almost total) amount of speculation and the author's well known habit of calling all birds dinosaurs.  So we get "spotted sandpiper dinosaurs" and "Scandinavian pied-flycatcher-dinosaurs."  Not that this is inaccurate, it's simply tedious and redundant, much as African elephant mammals and alligator snapping-turtle-reptiles would be.  There's another paragraph about such varied topics as ceratopsian limb posture and sauropod metabolism, but the interesting portion of the postscript is that titled Freud's Door (though it is not about Freud at all).  By way of a criticism of certain phylogenetic practices, Pickering lists "the superspecies of Tyrannosaurus" including T. [rex] bataar, T. [rex] rex, and T. [rex] stanwinstonorum followed by diagnoses for each.  I'm really not sure what a superspecies is, nor what his bracketed notation indicates, but in any case the diagnosis for "stanwinstonorum" is based on characters which are probably individual variation (larger body size than T. rex; reduced nasal rugosities), incorrect (palatine recess absent; rugosity absent on ventral pterygoid wing of palatine; supradentary absent), or ambiguous (reduced postorbital-orbital joint). Pickering also mentions Allosaurus and provides a diagnosis of A. "whitei", which as Chure (2000) notes in detail is invalid for the same reason Paul's version of A. atrox and Bakker's version of Creosaurus are.  Finally, the Epilogue consists of a taxonomic criticism, leading the reader to his erection of a new species of Ceratosaurus- C. "willisobrienorum."  It turns out this is based on both the holotype of C. magnicornis (the proposed type of Pickering's species) AND C. dentisulcatus.  I have no opinion on the taxonomy of Ceratosaurus at the moment, as I have not studied the issue.  This is directly followed by a more opaque concluding paragraph which has been partially quoted by Chure in his thesis ("Multiple levels of ebbulient perception inundate one's post-Obie existence, as the epochal significance of King Kong is to be firmly positioned in the imagi-nation..."), involving theater, Judaism and the like.

My final judgement is a mixed bag.  The osteologies contain much useful information, though I prefer Benson's descriptive method, explanatory line drawings and phylogenetic context.  Of course Welles wrote much of it in the 70's and 80's, so the lack of much phylogenetic context isn't surprising.  The taxonomic and specimen referrals are often undefended and problematic, which is another downfall.  Much of "King Kong: Unauthorized Jewish Fractals in Philopatry" isn't as bad as it's been made out to be- for a pair of movie commentaries.  It's usually readable, if that sort of thing interests you.  But it's not anything you'd find in a technical journal, and the dinosaur sections lack a common theme.  They might be appropriate for Prehistoric Times, though I think there's too much speculation and too little evidence to back it up.  Pickering's idiosyncratic terminology for birds also elicits eye rolls after a while.  The new names proposed in this paper seem like afterthoughts.  They merit a name, material list and a diagnosis, and then it's on to the next topic.  Even ignoring the ICZN, that's no way to propose a new taxon.

Next up, "Liassaurus", then probably a couple more taxa to round out the month.

18 comments:

  1. A "superspecies" is a semi-formal grouping of closely related species; essentially, a taxonomic rank above species but below subgenus. IIRC, superspecies were used extensively in the Sibley and Monroe (1990) bird checklist which also used the square bracket notation. For Sibley and Monroe, a superspecies was an assemblage of allopatric species for which the question of whether to regard them as separate species or subspecies of a single species was as much a question of personal taxonomic philosophy as any empirical factors, such as among the various Pacific island 'species' of silvereyes, or the four or so 'species' of Eurasian white ibis.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Shalom & good morning, Mickey:
    I've read all of this with keen interest, and thank you for giving them a chance to 'speak', so to speak. The 'phylogenetic contexts' are in-progress in MUTANDA DINOSAUROLOGICA, which is far more extensively detailed than my published extracts. And, yes, Mickey, as you now see, these WERE published, even if you (and others) then and now disagree with the methodologies. The Ceratosaurus/Allosaurus/Tyrannosaurus spp. (I still think the 'superspecies' [which didn't originate with Chuck Sibley, by the way] concept is applicable to Tyrannosaurus, and Christopher Taylor's definition is accurate) were not 'afterthoughts', but part of what I (then) considered to be the philosophical matrix I was attempting to formulate (however flawed in your eyes). Ceratosaurus was revised years previous to Madsen's later attempt (in fact, he knew about Sam and I working, as I recall, and Sam in his office had a nice photo of a Willis O'Brien 1925 theropod I gave to him), and I have photographs of the entire hypodigm. Much of Sam's thoughts re: the Ceratosaurus specimens were replicated by Madsen, much to my annoyance. I have nothing to say about Chure's idiosyncratic 2000 attacks against me; they are his personal problems, not mine. 'Freud's door' and 'advertisements' were used by me as plays-on-words re: the anti-intellectual mediasaurs at the rule-headed 'DML'. And, of course, all 'birds' are theropod dinosaurs; my word choice then (and now, in other projects) may seem awkward, but I still use it.
    I disagree with you, Mickey, on some of your judgements, but I want to emphasize that what you received was revised by ME -- in some cases, written by me under Sam's tutelage.
    Again, thank you, Mickey.
    Kol tuv uv'racha you. Stephan

    STEPHAN PICKERING / Chofetz Chayim ben-Avraham
    The Dinosaur Fractals Project

    ReplyDelete
  3. As a postscript, Mickey, to some of what I perceive above to be circuitous reasoning on your part, 'numerous and identical durable copies' WERE printed of each, 50 to be precise. I just spent an hour at my attorney's office, and, in her hands, she held my publications, Mickey. They were not printed on H20 molecules, or on quantum foam, but on paper.

    The KING KONG pages you have are photocopies; the original was printed and 'saddle-stitched' on high grade 'glossy' stock paper, and was NOT a 'pamphlet'. In fact, you have the last remaining duplicates in my files (except for 2 copies of the Altispinax revision I have). For you to continue to put "" around the taxa established is inaccurate and unfair, Mickey. These are valid scientific taxa, with names, hypodigms, and diagnoses (even if you do not agree with the conclusions). Thus, Walkersaurus has priority. If you doubt me, take the copy I sent to you, and talk to a lawyer, double-checking against ICZN in the process (a physicist won't be necessary to confirm you have a tangible, printed entity).

    YOU might not like the fact they were privately published, Mickey, but I made available to you 'durable copies' because I have thoroughly appreciated your efforts here. Your discussions have been interesting, maintaining a standard of discourse which I relish. Thus, you CANNOT continue to claim they are not publications qua publications. These are actual, legal PUBLICATIONS, admissable, e.g., in a court proceeding. I did not makes copies available at the time to those you might believe I should have -- e.g. depositing the entire mss. in a university library -- and the work(s) are integral to the in-progress MUTANDA DINOSAUROLOGICA, and protected by my 1984 copyright (which is about to be renewed) to thwart plagiarism from 'Qilongia' &c., e.g. I could, I suppose, print 10 more copies of each, and mail them around, but I cannot afford it, and, at this point since my beloved wife perished in 2008, my research energy is elsewhere, and legal consultation has confirmed what I knew anyway (as Sam told me during our last conversation, when he had a set of these in his hands: 'Stephan, they've been born'.

    I should also like to point out that Sam Welles, in the presence of my wife and I, over a period of several weeks, carefully went over each page of MUTANDA DINOSAUROLOGICA, knowing that, when possible, the project would be updated, with a bibliography, phylogenetic contextual analyses, etc. This, Mickey, is called PEER REVIEW. 'much of the material' was written by ME, deriving from the mss. Sam gave to me. I do not need, to be sure, to have the pages re-peer reviewed, although, in the future, as MUTANDA DINOSAUROLOGICA begins to take final shape, you will receive a copy for analysis and comment. Anyone who wishes to dispute the FACT these are publications is a deliberate, knowing liar; I am convinced, contra your inferences, these meet ICZN standards (I could care less their distribution was limited).

    Well, enough. You DO have my gratitude, and I look forward to reading your further observations, even as I continue to disagree with your extrapolations. My question for you, of course, is: when you will make your diagnoses of non-avian Dinosauria available?

    Kol tuv uv'racha, Mickey. Stephan
    STEPHAN PICKERING / Chofetz Chayim ben-Avraham
    The Dinosaur Fractals Project

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  4. A post-postscript, if you will. The challenge the ICZN deflationary strategist faces is to find a formulation of falsifiability that includes all of the minutae of the ICZN (setting aside the legalist paradigm which, on several levels, nullifies your points above, Mickey), but excludes actual, independent/self-publishing, in my case 'peer-reviewed' by Sam Welles, my friend and peer (whose work has, directly or indirectly, been wantonly plundered in England). You have, I think, attempted this in various comments here...but your effort is not successful, in my own mind.

    Your template is that ICZN is not falsifiable, whereas self-published papers and monographs are falsifiable. According to your reasoning (if I am reading you correctly), 'a' hypothesis (self-publishing) is said to be falsified on one of two conditions. 'a' does not effectively fit with presumed known 'facts' (i.e. ICZN), or there is some other hypothesis 'a*' that fits these known 'facts' better. Your claim is that ICZN, as you interpret it, fits the known 'facts' better than 'a' (self-published papers/monographs [tell this to George Olshevsky, myself, among others]). However, if what you are inferring is true, your ICZN-derived template is falsified, from which it self-evidently follows that your ICZN-derived template is falsifiable.

    Walkersaurus, and my other taxa, are NOT nomina nuda, either in actual fact (you have the publications) or in someone's 'Tim Williams''s-like Imagi-Nation.


    A thought on this 10 Iyyar 5770 C.E.
    Kol tuv uv'racha, Stephan
    STEPHAN PICKERING / Chofetz Chayim ben-Avraham
    The Dinosaur Fractals Project

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  5. Stephan, your emphasis on legal issues is inconsequential. No one doubts your papers are copyrighted publications in the legal sense. That doesn't mean the scientific community has to accept them as published in the ICZN sense. It's not the peer review or the self publication aspects, or even how many copies you printed out, it's the fact these papers were basically printed by you and sent to several colleagues. Who in 1984, 1990 etc. had any ability to purchase them? Even George Olshevsky only received the Megalosaurus and "breedorum" papers in 1999. This isn't just people who have issues with you either, check out Olshevsky's Dinolist http://www.polychora.com/dinolist.html or Tracy Ford's Paleofile http://www.paleofile.com/Demo/Mainpage/Taxalist/Dinosaurs/Theropods.htm . Your taxa are nomina nuda on both. And while you might publish your works in the future validly, note that Article 9.7 means the earlier dates will not be valid.

    I'm glad to hear Welles went over Mutanda Dinosaurologica. I don't think the Archosauromorpha papers you sent are qualitatively worse than other peer reviewed publications, such as the Madsen and Welles Ceratosaurus paper. I look forward to reading the Megalosaurus paper and whatever else you send in the future.

    Any diagnoses of dinosaurian taxa I've written are free to use, though I would prefer acknowledgement of course.

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  6. I appreciate your comments, Mickey, but again stress you are, unfortunately, mistaken. You state 'validly'. And yet. They were printed (George has a set, Tracey has a set [I don't know where you received the '1999' figure]) on paper, durable copies, Mickey, not illusions. And: the ICZN rules you keep citing WERE met by me. You again emphasize 'these papers were basically printed by you'. That, my friend, is quite irrelevant. They were peer-reviewed by Sam Welles after my revisions and rewrites (some of them I wrote entirely myself), then sent out. They remain valid dinosaur taxa; you et al. might cling to the idea they are nomina nuda; they are not. I know I erected Walkersaurus years before Benson, and it pleased Sam greatly when he took it from my hands in printed form, smiled, and put it in his WALKERSAURUS file.

    I still believe you are providing the best avenue for dinosaur discussion (setting aside my own site, of course!), Mickey.
    Kol tuv uv'racha, Mickey.
    Stephan

    STEPHAN PICKERING / Chofetz Chayim ben-Avraham
    The Dinosaur Fractals Project

    ReplyDelete
  7. Here's how peer-review works:

    You (and co-authors) write a paper.

    You submit it to a journal.

    The editor takes the paper and sends it to reviewers selected by the journal to read over your paper and offer critical comments and thoughts. Ideally these reviews are objective and were not involved with your research originally.

    You receive feed back from the reviewers and answer their criticisms/questions or revise your manuscript if necessary.

    The manuscript is then resent back to the editor for the journal who reviews it to make sure the concerns/criticisms/questions of the reviewers are met. The manuscript might be sent for a second round of review again, and if so you repeat the earlier steps.

    Eventually the manuscript is accepted and then published in a journal that is widely accessible and reposited publicly.

    Do your earlier papers naming these taxa exist in a public repository? Last I checked from your own words, the answer is NO. Real science works through these checks and counter checks, people reading your work, responding to it and your counter-responses, not blind defenses of the original work.

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  8. Good point about peer-review, anonymous. Welles reviewing his own work that was revised by you hardly counts, but that doesn't concern me much since I don't think peer review is covered by the ICZN.

    "George has a set, Tracey has a set [I don't know where you received the '1999' figure]"

    http://dml.cmnh.org/1999Dec/msg00097.html

    Where Olshevsky writes, "I recently received copies of two different privately published booklets, both identically titled An Extract from: Archosauromorpha: Cladistics &
    Osteologies." Note both George and Tracy list "breedorum" as having a 1999 publication date, and the rest of your taxa as being nomina nuda with a 1995 publication date based on "Jurassic Park: Unauthorized Jewish Fractals in Philopatry", which Tracy received in 1995 but George received in 1999- http://dml.cmnh.org/1999Dec/msg00193.html

    However, your Allosaurus, Tyrannosaurus and Ceratosaurus species may just count, since that paper was sent to Prehistoric Times subscribers. One issue is Article 8.2 (Publication may be disclaimed. A work that contains a statement to the effect that it is not issued for public and permanent scientific record, or for purposes of zoological nomenclature, is not published within the meaning of the Code.) since the pamphlet is labeled an advertisement. Even if you meant it as an obscure joke, there's no way to determine that from the work itself.

    If you don't mind me asking, which other paleontologists besides myself, George and Tracy have any of your Archosauromorpha papers?

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  9. I no longer have the file containing the lists of people to whom copies were sent. I know Paul Sereno has one (or more) -- if memory serves, he was sent Dilophosaurus breedorum some years ago, as his request. Sam Welles, of course, had a complete set of everything, including MUTANDA DINOSAUROLOGICA.

    The 1996 publication was sent to subscribers by THE PREHISTORIC TIMES by Mike Frederickson (I can't remember the issue in question, but Dilophosaurus breedom was the subject of a short article by me around that time). My son -- who died 23 October 2009 -- helped my wife and I with stacking the various papers in 1995, then putting them in envelopes and mailing them. He and his wife, of course, had a set.

    Yes, Dilophosaurus breedorum was published in 1999, in a run of 50 copies...and, yes, the 4 April 1996 date for KING KONG: unauthorized Jewish Fractals in Philopatry VALIDATES (using, in part, ICZN 8.2) the 1995 nomina nuda (Allosaurus whitei, Tyrannosaurus stanwinstonorum, and Ceratosaurus willisobrienorum) -- which ARE valid. This publication is NOT a 'pamphlet', Mickey. You seem to like the word, I don't.

    The little lecture by 'Anonymous' above is irrelevant. I choose/chose the avenues with which my work appears, and Sam Welles's careful review of the entire mss. constitutes an invalidation of 'Anonymous''s non-sense paradigms. 'Anonymous' is hardly my 'peer'. I do not need 'checks' and 'counter-checks', as I am quite capable of reading, analysis, and formulations. He would not be part of any 'peer review', to be sure, as I have always considered the process rather non-objective, and politically motivated by many 'reviewers'.

    Upon legal advice, I have chosen over the years to keep the entire MUTANDA DINOSAUROLOGICA in my possession -- depositing it in a 'public repository' would allow it to be plagiarized and used without permission. 'Anonymous' may think this viable, but I reject it outright.

    All of this is interesting, of course...since I know the publications you received, Mickey, are VALID durable copies on paper. I do not have to print a copy of each copy again, and deposit these anywhere to prove they are actual scientific publications for the public record. Nor do I (and others) look upon the ICZN as the last word, as it were, on knowledge and scientific acceptability.

    Now, of course, all of you have to live with the fact that the papers Mickey has received ARE valid dinosaur taxa, with diagnoses, hypodigms, and descriptions. The fact they didn't appear in venues you might like is not relevant.

    Kol tuv uv'racha, Mickey. (And I still like you, Mickey, and these discussions!)
    Stephan

    STEPHAN PICKERING / Chofetz Chayim ben-Avraham
    The Dinosaur Fractals Project

    ReplyDelete
  10. Stephan Pickering / Chofetz Chayim ben-AvrahamApril 26, 2010 at 6:31 PM

    Shalom & good evening, Mickey &c.:
    This p.m., I talked with my daughter-in-law: she remembers that when my wife and I, and she and my son, had dinner with Michael Crichton in 1995 (I am the proud owner of signed copies of JP, and a copy of his unfilmed script for the film -- different from, and more nuanced than the Spielberg dumbing-down of the book), we gave him a complete set. Mr Crichton's death was a stunning event, as was that of Stan Winston (he received far too much credit for the dinosaur models due in large measure to his incredible staff of artists). Also receiving sets were Stan Winston and Mr Spielberg. Unless I am mistaken Mike Fredericks received a set.

    All of these gentlemen, my peers, by the way, qualify, like you, as 'amateur' paleontologists. For me, Mr Crichton sitting with me, and looking at some of the photos I used, was as much an honour as when, in the early 1970s, I had an evening dinner with Reb Gershom Scholem. Mr Crichton knew far more about dinosaurology than the DML would ever realise.

    I must say that your friends (especially 'Anonymous' and his tantrums) have my deepest commiseration in the fact they cannot deny, on legal/nomenclatural grounds, that my PUBLISHED taxa ARE valid, and not nomina nuda. Just because some lists have yet to change their status re: the taxa is no concern of mine, and does NOT change their scientific validity. You, Mickey, have 'durable copies', unless, of course, they are quantum holographs fading out at some predetermined moment! Perhaps, you could scan copies of them, and allow 'Anonymous' the chance to see real dinosaurology.

    Kol tuv uv'racha & chazak/strength! Stephan

    STEPHAN PICKERING / Chofetz Chayim ben-Avraham
    The Dinosaur Fractals Project

    ReplyDelete
  11. The use of the term 'advertisement' doesn't necessarily indicate anything; I think at the time it was an American legal requirement that this label be appended to anything for which the cost of printing had be partially or wholly paid for by the submitter. A lot of PNAS articles from that time period are labelled as 'advertisements' for that reason.

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  12. Stephan Pickering / Chofetz Chayim ben-AvrahamApril 26, 2010 at 8:49 PM

    Chris Taylor is correct, as I was aware of this when putting together part of the KING KONG paper, the first four pages at the bottom marked ADVERTISEMENT. I was, also, taking satiric aim at the rule-headed anti-intellectuals controlling DML, who, among others, ousted Tracy Ford and George Olshevsky, free-lance paleontologists. Since I wholly paid for a paper being submitted to the 'public', it was a legal 'advertisement'.
    L'Shana Tova, Stephan
    STEPHAN PICKERING / Chofetz Chayim ben-Avraham
    THE DINOSAUR FRACTALS PROJECT

    ReplyDelete
  13. "Upon legal advice, I have chosen over the years to keep the entire MUTANDA DINOSAUROLOGICA in my possession -- depositing it in a 'public repository' would allow it to be plagiarized and used without permission. 'Anonymous' may think this viable, but I reject it outright."

    It must be hard being retarded.

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  14. Stephan Pickering / Chofetz Chayim ben-AvrahamApril 28, 2010 at 10:12 AM

    Mickey: 'Anonymous' is has crossed over into the realm of overt baiting -- you and I both know what I am alluding to. I choose to keep our dialogue here on a higher level vs. 'Anonymous''s ca. 1939 profiling.
    As Reb Elie Wiesel has said: 'Some things are true, even if they never happened; other things are false, even if they are witnessed'.

    Kol tuv uv'racha.
    Stephan / Chofetz Chayim ben-Avraham
    The Dinosaur Fractals Project

    ReplyDelete
  15. Can't believe this hit Godwin's law already.

    You're fucking retarded, not because you're Jewish (I am too btw, so fuck your race card play), but because you're too stupid to realize that when you submit papers for review, your papers are protected by copyright.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Stephan Pickering / Chofetz Chayim ben-AvrahamApril 29, 2010 at 3:21 PM

    And you, 'Anonymous', are a blustering Jewbaiting charlatan: we Jews are not a biological 'race', so your nomenclature is so much nonsense. Your hyperbole (who taught to write polysyllabic words) is not surprising. 'race card'? Mike Taylor's baiting was not on this level (his comments emanate from ignorance, not willful bigotry). My papers were submitted to review: a peer paleontologist, a dinosaurologist who shared my passion (and wonder). My only advice for you is to seriously consider voluntary euthanasia so as to verify your ontological validity.


    Kol tuv uv'racha, Stephan Pickering

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    STEPHAN PICKERING / Chofetz Chayim ben-Avraham
    Jewish dinosaurologist / Heretic spiritist


    THE DINOSAUR FRACTALS PROJECT
    2333 Portola Drive # 4
    Santa Cruz, California 95062-4250
    stephanpickering@redshift.com


    website: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/paleo_bio_dinosaur_ontology

    IN PROGRESS: Mutanda Dinosaurologica: in memory of Samuel Paul Welles (9
    November 1909--6 August 1997)
    IN PROGRESS: Dialects of a synaesthetic heart: poetics for Faline
    Pickering (23 January 1949--24 August 2008)
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    PARTNER IN THE UNIVERSE TO: FALINE PICKERING, MY BELOVED QUANTUM PISCES
    MEMBER 13853: Society of Vertebrate Paleontology

    One concept corrupts and confuses the others. I am not speaking of the
    Evil whose limited sphere is ethics; I am speaking of the infinite. --
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    curious case of Benjamin Button
    What if G-d didn't say it? -- BART EHRMAN
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    commonplace. -- REB NACHMAN OF BRATSLAV
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    ReplyDelete
  17. "My papers were submitted to review: a peer paleontologist, a dinosaurologist who shared my passion (and wonder)"

    Samuel Welles would not count as objective, further, it is likely that any viewpoint he held on the matter is out of date given the number of years it's been since then...

    I'm not trying to bait you. You're just impossible to have a serious conversation with.

    You make the ridiculous claim that OMG IF I PURSUE A ROUTE OF PUBLICATION THAT WOULD BE FAIRLY NORMAL FOR MOST PALEONTOLOGISTS, I WILL GET RIPPED OFF AND HORRIBLE THINGS WILL HAPPEN. Cats and dogs mating, etc. Reality is, I don't think you believe that your work can withstand the scrutiny of your peers.

    That would certainly seem to be the case anyway based on Mickey's reviews of your writings thus far.

    Stop playing the Nazi/Jew card as a defense.

    Also holy shit @ a jew suggesting someone should consider euthanasia?

    ReplyDelete
  18. after much research and many phone calls to Berkley it seems Welles never published anything with Pickering. In fact his aide said he never heard of him or "the dino factuals project".So as I figured all along Pickering is a poser, a phony. He has no degree as a paleontologist, he is simply a wannabe. Welles was a world renowned paleontologist who dug around the world. Why would he confer with a nobody>>>>> Show us the papers pickering or shut the fuck up.....

    ReplyDelete