The Victim - Spinops sternbergorum (artistic reconstruction by Dmitry Bogdanov, image from Science 2.0 story)
I don’t use this blog as a platform to rant very often, but a story published on Gawker this afternoon has me all riled up.
In “Moron Paleontologists Find New Species of Dinosaur in Their Own Museum“, author Max Read decides he’s fully qualified to judge how paleontology and taxonomy in general should be done, and criticizes a team of paleontologists for doing something every taxonomist does; study material housed in a museum. That’s right, Mr. Read snidely mocks the authors, who described a very cool new dinosaur species, for not undertaking a grand expedition to parts unknown to find this new species, instead discovering the species while re-examining specimens housed in the British Natural History Museum’s basement collections.
Nevermind the function of a museum is not just to provide a place for ignoramuses like Mr. Read to potentially learn something about natural history and gawk at fantastic displays, but also to actually house the raw data of biology; specimens. Or that people studying specimens in museums would much rather be exploring exotic new localities but are handcuffed by a critical lack of monetary support for taxonomy, which cuts our ability search for new specimens (which are then brought back to the museum and ultimately stored, although I guess that fact never occurred to Mr. Read either). Or indeed that the process of taxonomy is not as straightforward as looking at a single specimen (or pieces of a specimen as is the case in much of paleontology) and instantly recognizing it as unique and in need of a new name.
The true shame of all this is the fact that the blog network Mr. Read writes for is composed of a number of blogs which routinely write well-versed and well-researched pieces on science and technology (io9 & Gizmodo to be precise). How this fascinating story was forwarded onto Mr. Read and not to authors in those other fine networks who I’m sure could have done it justice is almost as outrageous as Mr. Read’s story itself.
Natural history collections are one of the most valuable resources we have as a society, providing a link to the world around us, and to believe that people shouldn’t be studying the material contained within them is like believing that libraries shouldn’t be used for fact checking. Oh, wait…
(If you want to see how science journalism SHOULD be done, I encourage you to read Science 2.0’s version of the story)
I said to myself (before opening the post) “Did he write something scathing?” And oh, yes, he did.
I wrote an abbreviated version of this as a comment on Gawker site and it was blocked as “Spam”. Really?
I may be developing a bit of a reputation lately, huh? Hopefully I can go back to always being cheery about stuff soon! And that’s pretty lame you got blocked over at Gawker! Maybe they’ve had too many others calling them out on the ridiculousness!
I think this was the perfect response. Had to write my own, of course, but I couldn’t think of a title as “ouch” as yours.
Thanks Kai! I liked yours as well, and I think they make a good pair on how ridiculous that article was!
The internet is an amazing source of information on all kinds of subjects, from all kinds of people. Many individuals publish insightful comments and opinions about topics which are near and dear to their heart, mind and soul, with the purpose of making a contribution to society. Unfortunately, there are others who seem to relish in criticizing and ridiculing people for their thoughts, even though they themselves appear to not have the wherewithal to understand or appreciate intellectual concepts.
I don’t know how you came across the recent article by GAWKERS, but it certainly indicates your strong interest and determination to seek out information around the world related to your field of entomology and the science of taxonomy. For this you are to be commended.
By the same token, you need to take into consideration the source of such information, as one means to determine the value and validity of the opinions expressed. In this instance, the author of the GAWKERS blog has chosen a very accurate and revealing name for his/her blog. If you look up “gawker” in a dictionary, you will see it means “one who gawks”, and the definition for “gawk”, is “stare openly and stupidly”, with the example “they were gawking at some pin-up”. It is obvious from this recent posting on GAWKERS, and from others I reviewed on that blog, that this person is evidently one of those who has nothing of value to contribute to society. I only hope the majority of people who stumble upon that blog soon recognize it is but one of many “digital trash dumps” on the internet.
Reference: http://english.oxforddictionaries.com/
I think the majority of space at Gawker is spent on New York City & celebrity gossip, and while that’s of no interest to me, if that’s something that others enjoy reading, that’s cool with me. The major problem I had was the large number of readers of that site who may not be getting proper scientific content from other sources, and who might not know why that article was so far off-base. Hopefully a few of them will find their way here (or the other blogs that have discussed this topic like Kai’s above) and gain a better understanding of how taxonomy/paleontology/science is actually done!
If Mr. Read is right, then I’m a bigger moron, because I did the exact same thing and named TWO ankylosaurids from museum collections and hope to do name new ones using the same method…