On Thursday, June 24, 2021 at 12:25:52 AM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> On 6/23/21 7:25 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Wednesday, June 23, 2021 at 9:20:16 PM UTC-4, *Hemidactylus* wrote:
> >> Peter Nyikos <peter2...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>> On Wednesday, June 23, 2021 at 3:32:22 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> >>>> On 6/23/21 9:14 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>>>> On Tuesday, June 22, 2021 at 6:39:59 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> >>>>>> On Tuesday, June 22, 2021 at 3:24:41 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>>>>>> On Tuesday, June 22, 2021 at 6:18:03 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> >>>>>>>> On Tuesday, June 22, 2021 at 3:06:00 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>>>>>>>> On Tuesday, June 22, 2021 at 4:44:44 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>> On Tuesday, June 22, 2021 at 11:14:59 AM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>> On Tuesday, June 22, 2021 at 12:01:20 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>>> On Monday, June 21, 2021 at 2:46:34 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>>>> On Thursday, June 17, 2021 at 7:21:55 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> On Thursday, June 17, 2021 at 2:03:36 PM UTC-7, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On Wednesday, June 16, 2021 at 11:27:29 AM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> A much better bibliography (and far better review) than Bechly's is found at
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> ... a site where there is no mention of the concept of glide symmetry:
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspb.2020.3055
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Calling something a "bilaterian" without even acknowledging a crucial
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> countervailing feature
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> is akin to calling a Rangeomorph a "sea pen" --- something
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> that was once taken for granted,
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> but now has been thoroughly discredited.
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Also, there seems to be a fallacy of begging the question in the authors'
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> words,
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "Based on recent work, we assume that these taxa were animals."
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> This looks like a source of bias for their cladogram in
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Figure 1. By ignoring the concept
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> of glide symmetry, they make all but one of these Ediacarans
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> bilaterians just on the basis
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> of a rough bilateral symmetry.
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> What, in your opinion, makes this "a far better review"? Just
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> the fact that the
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> authors are not creationists?
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Peter Nyikos
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Univ. of South Carolina at Columbia
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> PS I'd like to see the thread where you said this was "derailed."
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> For symmetry of Dickinsonia, see:
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> https://storage.googleapis.com/plos-corpus-prod/10.1371/journal.pone.0176874/1/pone.0176874.pdf?X-Goog-Algorithm=GOOG4-RSA-SHA256&X-Goog-Credential=wombat-sa%40plos-prod.iam.gserviceaccount.com%2F20210617%2Fauto%2Fstorage%2Fgoog4_request&X-Goog-Date=20210617T231648Z&X-Goog-Expires=86400&X-Goog-SignedHeaders=host&X-Goog-Signature=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
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>> I saw only one use of the term "glide ...
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> symmetry", and that was a general comment in the introduction that promised no
> >>>>>>>>>>>>> resolution between conflicting claims of its existence later in the article.
> >>>>>>>>>>>

> >>>>>>>>>>> This was, in fact, the only use of the word "glide" anywhere in the article.

> >>>>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>> Did you actually read anything tending towards a resolution
> >>>>>>>>>>>>> later on, or did you just post this long url because
> >>>>>>>>>>>>> "Google was your friend" and this was the first research level
> >>>>>>>>>>>>> you could find with the words "glide" and "symmetry" in it?

> >>>>>>>>>>> <crickets>

> >>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> The authors may or may not be "creationists" (I doubt it), but they are
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> prominent scientists active in this area.

> >>>>>>>>>>>>> That doesn't answer my question about why you think their
> >>>>>>>>>>>>> review (if that's the right word for their research article)
> >>>>>>>>>>>>> is far better than Bechly's review.
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> The previous thread is here:
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> https://groups.google.com/g/sci.bio.paleontology/c/_1O9jwW2CnU/m/SkuwXDHjAwAJY
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>> Thanks. Reading it, I get the impression that you don't know the difference
> >>>>>>>>>>>>> between a gadfly and a troll.
> >>>>>>>>>>>>> Glenn is a gadfly, but he is no more of a troll than you are.
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>> Peter Nyikos
> >>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>> I see my link doesn't work.
> >>>>>>>>>>> It worked just fine for me. On the other hand, the link you gave
> >>>>>>>>>>> below doesn't show the text at all,
> >>>>>>>>>>> and nothing happens when I click on "Download PDF". I did get a practically
> >>>>>>>>>>> unreadable XML document,
> >>>>>>>>>>> but not the pdf that your earlier link gave me right off the bat.
> >>>>>>>>>>>> Here's a link from which you can download the pdf:
> >>>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>> https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/comments?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0176874
> >>>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>> It answers your questions about "glide symmetry" and the results
> >>>>>>>>>>>> more completly than I care to
> >>>>>>>>>>>> summarize.
> >>>>>>>>>>> I believe, from what you write next, and what I have read of the article,
> >>>>>>>>>>> that you are hoping I will make some nasty remarks about what
> >>>>>>>>>>> you've written just now.
> >>>>>>>>>>>> If this post and the following remarks in a subsequent post are any indication,
> >>>>>>>>>>>> your committment to "civility" doesn't sound too deep. Unless
> >>>>>>>>>>>> some changes happen, you
> >>>>>>>>>>>> may expect no further communications from me.
> >>>>>>>>>>> Do you imagine that you are displaying civility here?
> >>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>> You and I made a commitment to civility here in April of 2015,
> >>>>>>>>>>> along with John Harshman,
> >>>>>>>>>>> joined later by Richard Norman. Less than a year after Richard
> >>>>>>>>>>> disappeared, you unilaterally
> >>>>>>>>>>> broke it in early 2018. Do you deny this?
> >>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>> If you do, please tell me how you define the word "civility" in a way that
> >>>>>>>>>>> distinguishes it
> >>>>>>>>>>> from "being a doormat".
> >>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>> Peter Nyikos
..
> >>>>>>>>> I can see from your response that you have been your usual
> >>>>>>>>> mischievous self in these last two
> >>>>>>>>> posts. It's nice to know that all your talk of "civility" was just flippant banter.
..
> >>>>>>>>>> Try this from my dropbox:
> >>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>> https://www.dropbox.com/s/r5sqx1w1ozrg2dz/Dickensonia%20%28Evans%2C%20Droser%2C%20Gehling%29.pdf?dl=0
> >>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>> If that doesn't work, you're on your own.
..
> >>>>>>>>> Who cares whether it works or not? You are mischievously
> >>>>>>>>> disregarding my assurance that your original long url worked.
..
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> And so, I also believe now that your comment,
..
> >>>>>>>>>>>> It answers your questions about "glide symmetry" and the results
> >>>>>>>>>>>> ​more completly than I care to
> >>>>>>>>>>>> summarize.
..
> >>>>>>>>> was just you pulling my leg (and Glenn's too) about a summary that
> >>>>>>>>> takes 0 keystrokes to type.
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> Peter Nyikos
> >>>>>>>
..
> >>>>>>>> ??
> >>>>>>> Simulated incomprehension noted.
..
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> Bye.
> >>>>>>>
..
> >>>>>>> My logic should have been readily understandable from the following sentence:
> >>>>>>> "You are mischievously disregarding my assurance that your original long url worked."
> >>>>>>> If anyone reading this does not see why, I suggest that such a person
> >>>>>>> scroll up to read this quoted sentence in context.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Peter Nyikos
> >>>>>
..
> >>>>>> So sorry, but bye anyway. Have fun with Glenn.
> >>>>>
..
> >>>>> An appropriate word with which to end your presence: Glenn, who made the odds
> >>>>> against you and Harshman 2-2, which was so unbearable for Harshman that he
> >>>>> vanished from this thread almost a week ago and has never returned. [1]
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Even the 2-1 odds that you and he had against me without Glenn were enough to
> >>>>> make you uncomfortable, weren't they? Both of you sorely missed that
> >>>>> rabid anti-Nyikos fanatic, Oxyaena, didn't you?
..
> >>>>> [1] Harshman suddenly showed up in talk.origins a couple of days ago,
> >>>>> secure in the knowledge
> >>>>> that at least a dozen people there have his back. But his dereliction
> >>>>> of duty here, with three or more posts by me left unanswered, is catching
> >>>>> up to him on the thread,
> >>>>> A Tale of Two Newsgroups: talk.origins and sci.bio.paleontology
> >>>>> https://groups.google.com/g/talk.origins/c/JaflLa7Zgdg
> >>>
..
> >>>> Sorry, I was in Iceland for 2 weeks.
> >>>
> >>> If so, all the posts you did this month were done from Iceland, beginning
> >>> with one on Jun 12, 2021, 5:08:53 AM.
> >>> And you neglected to tell us anything about any internet downtime or
> >>> power outage before you
> >>> played dumb with your next comment:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> What are you on about now?
> >>>
> >>> Why ask? The obvious conclusion from what you said and didn't say in your
> >>> preceding sentence
> >>> is that you couldn't see what went on because you
> >>> didn't want to know what was going on. Why start now?
> >>>
> >>> And I told Erik Simpson about the highly probable reason you didn't want
> >>> to see what was going on,
> >>> right in the post to which you are replying. Are you too
> >>> scrolling-impaired to look at it now?
> >>>
> >>> And Erik made a monkey out of himself with the reply he did to your disingenuous question,
> >>> falsely accusing me of drifting further and further of touch -- when he
> >>> couldn't even figure out that you
> >>> had to be doing all your June posts from Iceland.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> The only sensible thing Erik has done here after June 17 was to wish me
> >>> to have fun with Glenn.
> >>> When Glenn sees what bumbling and fumbling the two of you have done in
> >>> just two posts (one apiece),
> >>> he's bound to have a lot of fun, and it'll be fun for me too.
> >>>
> >>> But you'll both hate both of us all the more for that, won't you?
> >>>
> >> So this group isn’t about discussing paleontology is it?
>>
>>
> > It is, and I've been intending to start a paleontology thread on Dickinsonia,
> > but Harshman kept poisoning the wells by aggressively insinuating that the author
> > of one of the articles that I'd be copying facts --- data, not reasoning -- from was
> > a creationist.

> Bechly is a puzzling case. His manifesto says he's a saltationist, with
> a bunch of quantum-mechanics mumbo-jumbo to make it more sciencey. But
> he's constantly writing to attack evolutionary science of various sorts,

And you keep complaining about *me* being unclear! This generalization
is far more vague than anything I've written.

> including at times human evolution.

Bite your tongue! What you've been able to document does NOT call into
question the evolution humans from other primates.

> And he makes elementary mistakes in
> communicating paleontological data,

Unsupported, and hopelessly vague, allegation of "elementary mistakes" noted.

> always in the direction of attacking evolution.

Weasel wording "in the direction of" noted. The next time I throw a pine cone in the direction
of the moon, I'll remember what you wrote here.

<snip for focus>

> >> The
> >> actual subject matter is occasional backdrop for habitual name drop
> >> chatter.
> >
> > Where do you see more than one of that above? Erik even avoided dropping Glenn's name,
> > instead referring to him as "a troll" who "derailed" a thread. The "derailing"
> > took the form of Glenn being as sensitive to "insults" as Erik himself was,
> > right in the text that you have preserved above, going back through
> > each of 5 (five) successive posts.
> >
> >
> >> Why didn’t Harshman notify everyone of his travel plans?
> >
> > He didn't need to -- it was irrelevant. And you'd know that, if you had actually bothered
> > to read the post to which you are replying.
> >
> >
> > I suggest you not linger any longer in this thread, lest you make as big a monkey
> > of yourself as Erik made of himself in his reply to Harshman's post. I'd say
> > you are more than halfway there already.
> >
> >
> > Peter Nyikos
> >
> > PS Don't take Erik's silliness about this group being "almost dead," etc. seriously.
> > He's just suffering from a temporary case of sour grapes.

> Erik is apparently the current bete noir, who must be mentioned and
> attacked in every post, even if he has to be shoehorned in.

Erik shoehorned his mischief into this thread, and I've been calling him out on it.
Apparently you have been so conditioned by your favoritism towards him
from the get-go in talk.origins, and here in sci.bio.paleontology ever since he sabotaged the
civility that reigned here from April 2015 to early 2018, that you are no longer able to read what went on in
the oodles of text above where you came in with an open mind.

Anyway, you will finally get your chance to make good on your allegations about Bechly
when I start a thread on Dickinsonia: I'll begin by focusing on his long article about whether
it is an animal.

Early next week, hopefully Monday already. I'm sufficiently concerned about the lack of
on-topic discussion here to give it priority over everything in talk.origins, unless something
totally unexpected comes along.

Peter Nyikos