Incoming
Moonlight Huntress
Purple and Green Pachyrhinosaurus
Cretaceous Critter Coffee Co.
Retro Troodon in the Rushes (light-colored shirt)
Retro Troodon in the Rushes (dark-colored shirt)
Summer Sessions: Part 3
Each summer, the Museum hosts a number of student interns from colleges and area high schools.
Moonlight Huntress
A female Tyrannosaurus rex awakens at dusk, with a Triceratops breakfast already waiting on the horizon.
Also available as a t-shirt from RedBubble: [link]
Also available as a t-shirt from RedBubble: [link]
Summer Sessions: Part 2
Internship takes student to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for a remarkable experience
Female T-Rex
A Tyrannosaurus rex squats on the ground, exhibiting the patchy molting and flushed skin tones of a brooding female. A detail from a larger digital painting I am working on. May be moved to scraps.
A critique is requested, although I cannot officially request one because I'm not a premium member Any suggestions or recommendations is greatly appreciated!
A critique is requested, although I cannot officially request one because I'm not a premium member Any suggestions or recommendations is greatly appreciated!
Training a Turkey
No easy task: Wildlife specialist Nikki McClellan trains Jake the turkey to enter his kennel
Monarch Butterflies
From caterpillar to butterfly in the Museum's Smead Discovery Center
Behind the Scenes: Research & Collections
How the Museum's collections are used by curators and visiting scientists from around the world
Crshshsh!
Summer Sessions: Part 1
High school students get hands-on scientific experience
Why I do not rely exclusively on Google Image searches for Paleo-related research.
Darren Naish ( @TetZoo ) has a new post up on Tetropod Zoology concerning artist Dave Peters' website, reptileevolution.com and his blog at Pterosaur Heresies. David Peters is known for paintings and detailed reconstructions of extinct animals and an unorthodox way at looking at fossils.
Peters has used photos of many pterosaur taxa, traced a bunch of stuff in Photoshop and then based his ideas and reconstructions on these tracings.
Pareidolia may be best explanation for what Peters sees in these photos; other researchers seem unable to replicate his observations. And these tracings are just about the only evidence Peters has for the novel structures and reconstructions he now offers; he has not examined the specimens in person. While I don't think this is a necessary step to creating a reconstruction, it is certainly something which needs to be done if you're going to posit the existence of anatomy that people who have seen the original fossils don't see or publish anything about.
The problem is, anyone looking to do research on pterosaurs is going to find Peters' sites really easily—they are among the first images that pop up in any Google image search for "pterosaur," (and not just pterosaurs either) and most of what you find on Peters' sites is misleading, unsupported by any independent standards of evidence, or just wrong. I like the idea of being able to search a worldwide network of information from the convenience of a location which is rural and far far removed from libraries which carry subscriptions to periodicals like PNAS, Nature, or JVP, but not when I have to plow through a ton of rubbish to find useful information.
Peters' views are actually fairly interesting if considered from the standpoint of animals rooted exclusively in fantasy (or perhaps alt-evolution), but these ideas aren't worthy of consideration or of interest when I need to know what the current scientific consensus is when it comes to reconstructing animals like pterosaurs. As it is, his presence is pervasive on the web; Wikipedia includes frequent mentions and links to his work for even the more obscure animals.
Naish has presented some much-needed criticism of Peters' work, while bending over backwards to avoid damaging Peters' reputation or attacking him personally.
Peters has used photos of many pterosaur taxa, traced a bunch of stuff in Photoshop and then based his ideas and reconstructions on these tracings.
Pareidolia may be best explanation for what Peters sees in these photos; other researchers seem unable to replicate his observations. And these tracings are just about the only evidence Peters has for the novel structures and reconstructions he now offers; he has not examined the specimens in person. While I don't think this is a necessary step to creating a reconstruction, it is certainly something which needs to be done if you're going to posit the existence of anatomy that people who have seen the original fossils don't see or publish anything about.
The problem is, anyone looking to do research on pterosaurs is going to find Peters' sites really easily—they are among the first images that pop up in any Google image search for "pterosaur," (and not just pterosaurs either) and most of what you find on Peters' sites is misleading, unsupported by any independent standards of evidence, or just wrong. I like the idea of being able to search a worldwide network of information from the convenience of a location which is rural and far far removed from libraries which carry subscriptions to periodicals like PNAS, Nature, or JVP, but not when I have to plow through a ton of rubbish to find useful information.
Peters' views are actually fairly interesting if considered from the standpoint of animals rooted exclusively in fantasy (or perhaps alt-evolution), but these ideas aren't worthy of consideration or of interest when I need to know what the current scientific consensus is when it comes to reconstructing animals like pterosaurs. As it is, his presence is pervasive on the web; Wikipedia includes frequent mentions and links to his work for even the more obscure animals.
Naish has presented some much-needed criticism of Peters' work, while bending over backwards to avoid damaging Peters' reputation or attacking him personally.
Training and Enrichment in the Wildlife Center
At the Perkins Wildlife Center, there's more to animal care than feeding time and cleaning cages
Art Delays
Snow on the ground in April in Alaska?
This is awkward in ways that only a man who has too little knowledge but far too much confidence can be.
Being a skeptic doesn't mean we will ignore evidence for the sake of taking a contrary position. Doing so doesn't make anyone a skeptic, it makes them uninformed, and quite possibly uninformable.
Cf. Real Climate or, if you are, like me, less "trained as a scientist" and more "likes to watch videos" (not un-mutual conditions, please note), there's some very accessible critiques on blogs and YouTube which cover this exact subject. and is occasionally covered by the Bad Astronomy blog.
Granted, it's difficult to understand subjects as complex as this as a whole unless one is very well-read (and it's obvious from Medred's writing that in spite of his "science training" he just isn't). It's very easy to find denialist talking points like these everywhere on the web (this doesn't grant them any merit). So this so-called "skepticism" is ubiquitous. And, like creationist talking points they have been refuted in some cases for decades.
And so I find articles of this sort frustrating.
When Craig wants us to be real and accept that his statistical and climatological illiteracy gifts him with an ability to represent reality, I don't see any reason to take him seriously.
(Yes, I updated. I'm still really busy, but, as ever, I'm a little more actively blogging over at Cyrillic Typewriter.)
Being a skeptic doesn't mean we will ignore evidence for the sake of taking a contrary position. Doing so doesn't make anyone a skeptic, it makes them uninformed, and quite possibly uninformable.
Cf. Real Climate or, if you are, like me, less "trained as a scientist" and more "likes to watch videos" (not un-mutual conditions, please note), there's some very accessible critiques on blogs and YouTube which cover this exact subject. and is occasionally covered by the Bad Astronomy blog.
Granted, it's difficult to understand subjects as complex as this as a whole unless one is very well-read (and it's obvious from Medred's writing that in spite of his "science training" he just isn't). It's very easy to find denialist talking points like these everywhere on the web (this doesn't grant them any merit). So this so-called "skepticism" is ubiquitous. And, like creationist talking points they have been refuted in some cases for decades.
And so I find articles of this sort frustrating.
When Craig wants us to be real and accept that his statistical and climatological illiteracy gifts him with an ability to represent reality, I don't see any reason to take him seriously.
(Yes, I updated. I'm still really busy, but, as ever, I'm a little more actively blogging over at Cyrillic Typewriter.)
FREE MUMIA! I mean Fella.
I present for FUR's approval, Princess Buyo - cat fashionista and hair style expert - modeling a new mouton bouffant and ruling over her domain.
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