Res.I.P. – an unprofessional science (and other things) blog

Dispersing the Impermeable Fog: #3 – declining an invitation to review a pseudo-scientific paper

The Coexistence Approach is a pseudo-science. At least, it's fundamentally flawed in theory and practise. But one journal remains the bastion of true faith. But maybe tides are changing?

Bentham wants me as reviewer ... for medicinal chemistry

BSP pretends to be a proper scientific publisher, and not a predatory one. So, why sending an invitation to become a reviewer of some medicinal journal to a former scientist (see counter on my homepage) that dealt in phylogenetics and palaeobotany?

Trivial but illogical – reconstructing the biogeographic history of the Loranthaceae (again)

In 2007, a short but nice paper by Vidal-Russell & Nickrent provided a scenario for the unfolding of the Loranthaceae, a plant family of mostly epiphytic tree parasites. Recently, they teamed up with a Chinese group (Liu, Le et al. 2018) to provide a new, and totally unexpected hypothesis.

Elsevier's research data "not available/will be made available on request" – what will be your choice?

What do you do when authors claim something (showing nothing) that you know can't be true (because you showed otherwise)? Just request the data they used and re-analyse it to check. But this is not how it works. An example from Elsevier's Molecular Phylogenetics & Evolution.

What you should show in a palaeophylogenetic study

Far the most palaeophylogenetic studies rely exclusively on tree-inference as methodological framework. Thus, ignoring the fundamental properties over the underlying data: matrices that provide few tree-like signals. A recommendation what to show (and why).

Jupiter and Trumpelchen in love, or 0 + 0 = 1(st)

In this week, we were showered in images of pure, mutual love between the presidents of France and the U.S.A. Some may find this odd, given the obvious differences between the two lovebirds. But it's completely natural.

What exactly does Trumpelchen mean by "breeding concept"?

Ups, he did it again! Just another Trumpel-Tweet going rogue. CNN asked the question and provide an answer, the Southern Poverty Law Center points to where he may have picked it up. I have some ideas, too.

Digging deeper: Population dynamics and individual-based fossil phylogenies

In one of my last posts, I argued for looking out for ancestor-descendant relationships when putting up an evolutionary hypothesis based on fossil data. In this post, I will explore a bit the background of individual-based phylogenies and why we should keep in mind population processes, when analysing such data sets.

The challenging and puzzling ordinary beech – a (hi)story

While working on another post, I noticed I could need an example for a pretty well-understood evolution of a plant genus through space and time. But to keep the other post a short-as-possible, the example merits its own. So here's the history of the beeches, which is a nice story to tell, also regarding how it developed scientifically.

Where have all the ancestors gone?

In contrast to neontologists, palaeontologists deal literally in the past. However, like their modern counterparts, most palaeontologists seem to have the opinion that although we all agree evolution is a fact, we will never have to deal with actual ancestors.

How to get from Orléans to Paris on a railroad strike day?

Macron is sparring the French rail unions. The latter have engaged in what they call a "perl-strike", two days close-down, three days recovery, till June. With quite interesting side effects in the era of Big Data.

The Easter egg: Le Canard enchaîné – a weekly must read (also for French aliens)

In this Easter post, I'll cherish a light-house of French publications, Le Canard enchaîné. My occasional French readers will probably know it, but maybe those outside of France have never heard of it. Which would be a pity, as the "palmipède" is a must-read (if you can read French or attempt to).

What do political party genealogies tell us about France and Germany?

"Blue Marine" suggests re-naming her party, the "National Front" into the "National Get-together", taking up a long and prosperous French political tradition to put a new label on an old thing. But in Germany, even when the parties substantially change their political orientation, they would never change their name. Why are we so different?

Not that it get's lost – my comment to a (nice) dating of Dravidian languages

Twitter pointed me to a recent dating paper of Dravidian languages by Kolipakam et al. (2018), published with Royal Society Open Science. I'm not a linguist but I found it very interesting. But while other comments are waved through, mine is still on hold for now over 24h. Here it is.

Fertig (im mehrfachen Sinne) mit dem Schaf im Wolfspelz: meine erste und letzte Woche Dol(l)metschen

Der Herr ruhte vielleicht am 7. Tag, Trumpelchen dreht noch mal auf. Samstags und Sonntags, normalerweise in der sanften Tropensonne von Mar-A-Lago, kann er sich den wichtigen Sachen widmen: dem üblichen Wochenendge(t)witter und dem Golfen. Ein krönender Schluß für die derzeit beste Realsatire der Welt.

6. Tag, Frei-tag – wohl auch im Weißen Haus.

Der 6. Tag beginnt überraschend. Trump heuert und feuert niemanden, daß überläßt er seinem Justizminister (last-minute). Der 1. Tweet kommt erst um 7:40, pflichtschuldige Thoughts and Prayers (diesmal wegen Krieg). Amerikas Präsident hat wohl schon die 4-Tage Woche, von der wir alle träumen.

Tag 5. Lobe den Iren, den König der hehren Migranten ...

Tag 5. Thors Tag. Blitze und Donner. Zugegeben, ich zögere @realDonaldTrump aufzurufen. Aber harmlos. Neuer großartiger Mann im Team, Kanada ist unfair (wie alle anderen) und ein wenig Irenloben anläßlich des Besuchs des Taoiseachs, die großartig-dreckigen Immigranten von einst. Schwamm drüber, und Mauer vor.

Tag 4, Mitte der Woche und die Luft ist etwas raus aus dem Heißluftballon

Mittwoch, im Englischen (und Schwedischen) Odinstag. Wie ein Flitzebogen gespannt, was Amerikas Neu-Odin mitzuteilen hat. Immerhin steht seid gestern abend (Ortszeit) fest, daß es wieder einen weniger gibt für Stahl und Grenze (wobei das so nicht stimmt). Aber Missiouri ist wieder groß (also immer noch).

Tag 3, was zwitscherte der Orangegesichtige Elefantenvogel am Dienstag?

Es wird nie langweilig mit Trumpelchen. Der U.S. Präsident feuert den Außenminister per Twitter. Und geht dann Mauerteile besichtigen. All tremendously great people.