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File: Graur and Martin 2004 Trends in Genetics.png (48KB, 701x553px) Image search:
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ITT: we post common scientific misconceptions and shoddy factoids that even scientists often accept.
Starting with several well-known molecular clock estimates.
In "Reading the entrails of chickens: molecular timescales of evolution and the illusion of precision", Dan Graur and William Martin rip some popular molecular clock estimates to shreds. The piece is listed as opinion, but actually contains quite a bit of technical criticism peppered with sarcastic shit-talking. Highlights include:
>In this paper, the 310 ^ 0 MYA and the 110 ^ 0 MYA dates are treated as ‘independent’ calibrations for purposes of dating avian divergence events. The results based on the 310 ^ 0 MYA calibration and the results based on the 110 ^ 0 MYA calibration are compared and discussed. Unsurprisingly, because one date was derived from the other, the two values yielded concordant results. Interestingly, other authors have been misled into regarding these two dates as independent calibrations .
> Let us now see what happens if we include the calibration and derivation uncertainties in the calculations. The 95% interval turns out to span a period of ,14.3 billion years (from 14.3 billion to 93 MYA). Of course, to state that the lineages leading to Drosophila melanogaster and Caenorhabditis elegans diverged
from each other subsequent to the formation of the solar system but before the Cretaceous period requires no molecular data.
>Trying to estimate the divergence times of fungal, algal or prokaryotic groups on the basis of a partial reptilian fossil and protein sequences from mice and humans is like trying to decipher Demotic Egyptian with the help of an odometer and the Oxford English Dictionary. This is not to say that molecular estimates of divergence times are flawed per se; on the contrary, they are useful when based on solid statistical methodology and multiple fossil calibrations.
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>>9081330
A lot of scientists know the calibrations are bad, but a lot don't and for some reason you see these figures popping up in textbooks, middlebrow nature magazines like National Geographic or Scientific American, and lectures.
So yeah, bad science general. Also if you don't have bad science research post stories of scientists doing other stupid stuff like that time 'genius' chemist Thomas Midgley Jr. poured tetraethyllead on his hands in a PR stunt to prove that leaded gasoline was safe and then developed lead poisoning and had to take a sabbatical.
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Observer effect and uncertainty principle are the same thing.
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>evolution is a conscious entity with specific goals that guides how living organisms should develop
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>>9081330
yes, OP because the Earth is 4000 years old and dinosaurs were wiped out in a huge flood that covered the planet.
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>>9081890
>start thread
>get a few half-assed replies
>Go to bed
>find thread in the catalog
>"Oh, one reply, maybe it'll be good though.."
>it's a fucking unfunny shitposting
Fuck this board.
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>>9082339
>start thread
>do not provide link to grandiose, 'we'll overthrow most of modern science with this one weird trick' article
>expects quality replies
you are the OSP, the original shitposter. mend your ways.
Thread posts: 7
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