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The Daily Nimbyist Bungaloid Curtain Twitcher unclogged the deepest recesses of its own nadir a couple of days back (HT: Carl Zimmer. And don’t hit me, I’m a palaeontologist) with this startling story on the newly described pterosaur Darwinopterus whose headline reads, breathtakingly
THE TERRIFYING FLYING DINOSAUR THAT COULD UNLOCK THE MYSTERY OF HUMAN EVOLUTION
I shall now go away and chew one of my own legs off calm down before I examine this pitiful piece any further.
For the background to the story, look no further than Darren Naish’s moste excellente blogge here against which you can see that the story in the Daily Nimbyist doesn’t even rate as second-hand lavatory paper (reader offer! guaranteed only one side used!)
First, the headline. ‘Terrifying’ is quite unjustified. For all we know, Darwinopterus was a pussycat. ‘Flying dinosaur’ is worse – Darwinopterus was not a dinosaur but a pterosaur, as closely related to dinosaurs as we are to marsupials. Perhaps the offices of the Daily Nimbyist is staffed by quolls and quokkas, both of which rate pretty high scores at Scrabble™ if played judiciously. And as for the mysteries of human evolution? Good grief. I feel an interlude of cuddly pet pictures is in order.
Cuddly Pets, yesterday
There, that’s better.
Now, some background. Basically, pterosaurs come in two sorts, country, and western rhamphorhynchoids (primitive, small, had teeth and tails) and pterodactyloids (derived, sometimes very large, not always with teeth or tails), which were as different from one another as calcium carbonate is from fermented curd. Darwinopterus is an interesting transitional form, for it appears to have a pterodactyloid head and a rhamphorhynchoid body – modular evolution, caught on the wing.
But back to the story. Let’s pick out a couple of choice nuggets.
Darwinopterus was terrifying 2ft long hawk-like creature had huge talons that were used to snare other pterodactyls and flying mammals in mid air and pin them to the ground.
Gosh. In case the ‘flying mammals’ part seems odd, there are indeed fossils of gliding mammals from China, where Darwinopterus comes from. The rest of this sentence is even more engorged empurpled than one of Jenny’s my own novels. How can anything 2ft long be terrifying? I mean, the hens at the Maison Des Girrafes are about that size, and with their beady stares and eyes on the main chance, you sometimes think you’re walking into a remake of Jurassic Park – but they’re about as terrifying as a banana sandwich.
Keep still – their vision’s based on movement
But it’s the modularity of the evolution that’s so interesting, and perhaps more by luck than judgement, the DNBCT homes in on it like a cruise missile trips over this aspect.
The discovery shows that large parts of dinosaurs [sic] bodies such as the head and body ‘morphed’ rapidly over a short period of time. This dispels Darwin’s theory that small body parts such as a finger nail or tooth change gradually and could explain how humans developed so quickly from mammals
Oh dear. I think I need to hug a dog.
Here is a dog I prepared earlier
Ahhhhh…..
Now, where was I?
Oh, yes. The time over which the features of the ‘dinosaurs’ … er … ‘morphed’ is not known, and in any case, irrelevant. And one can only wonder at the phrase
rapidly over a short period of time.
I mean to say, can things change slowly over a short period of time and achieve the same effect? What if things changed rapidly over a long period of time? Not quite so rapid now, is it, punk? Doh. The idea the piece is groping for is not the time over which things changed, but the concerted change in a recognizable part of the body, in this case, the head.
None of this – not a dot, piece, shard, speck, globule, stain, necktie, sampler, stained-glass window, tattoo of this; not a fragment, mote, mustardseed, flopsy, mopsy, cottontail or peter of this; not a femto, pico, atto, groucho, harpo, zeppo or benveniste of this; not a smidgeon, pigeon, widgeon, gudgeon or dudgeon of this
dispels Darwin’s theory that small body parts such as a finger nail or tooth change gradually
Modularity is just a lot of related features changing together, perhaps as a function of deep homology. There is nothing un-Darwinian about it.
In any case, how is it that the concept of rapid, wholesale change in structures
could explain how humans developed so quickly from mammals ?
Leave aside the categorical error implicit in this sentence – that humans are not mammals, as egregious as the error that says that pterosaurs are dinosaurs. My question is this: what aspect of human evolution is being addressed here? Another sentence in the piece yields a useful clue.
[Modular evolution] could also explain how mammals and humans evolved new body parts so quickly after dinosaurs died out in the Ice Age
The writer of this piece clearly has a Racquel Welch fixation, or is otherwise convinced that One Million Years BC is a documentary. But what are these ‘new body parts’ of which the commentator speaks with such authority?
Evolution of New Body Parts after the Ice Age
Now, I can’t decide. Could it be a generous embonpoint? Or Ugg™ boots?
I can hardly bring myself to go on. But soft – who is the author of this specimen of garbled rubbish? The story is credited to DAILY MAIL REPORTER, which means that the person writing it can hide behind a cloak of invisibility.
Now, I’m a palaeontologist, which means I’m used to trying to reconstruct appearances and events from a scatter of fubarized fragments. I detect in this cackhanded abortion of a tale that there might once have been a skein of connected argument, even if flawed, that had been amputated, trunctated, procrustated and otherwise drained of all meaning by a news editor who seems to have edited with all the acumen of an orang-utan with Tourette’s and a machete. I have elsewhere said that the news editor is the enemy of journalists, even good ones – and if you, dear reader, are a news editor, you should not rise up to condemn my statement, nor even justify your actions, but hie to the DNBCT and have a stiff word or two with your professional compadres. If you can’t do that, you should keep very, very quiet, or perhaps crawl beneath the nearest compost compositing linotype machine and die of shame.
But what of the DNBCT itself? Clearly, for a paper to print such tripe without realizing it as such exposes not so much an ignorance of science, but a wholesale contempt for it. In my view, if a newspaper can’t find the resources to report a subject properly, it should not report it at all.
This, however, reveals a darker issue about the media in general. We scientists and science fans often grouch about the poor state of science reporting in many parts of the mass media. But what grounds do we have for believing that this aspiration to mediocrity is true of science alone? Could it be that policy wonks complain among themselves about the way the media reports about politics? Fashionistas fume about fashion coverage? Economists blow chunks about reporting on economics? Child-protection workers grate at stories on child abuse? If it is the case that the standard of reporting on specialist subjects (a category in which everything falls) in the general media is as low as it is about science, how can we believe anything that we see and hear under the rubric of general news?
If all the news to which we are exposed is so grossly in error, we shall be reduced to trusting that which we see only with our own eyes, and, pretty soon, we’ll all take it as read that the Earth is flat; that the Sun moves round it in crystal spheres, and that the Universe was created on 23 October, 4004 BC – which happens to fall 6,013 years ago, next week.
Closing thought: I wonder if the low quality of news in much of the U. S. and A. is related to the prevalence of various degrees of primitive superstition in that country?
Last updated: Friday, 16 Oct 2009 - 14:47 UTC
© 2009 Nature Publishing Group
What a fabulous post. Thoroughly enjoyed reading it. The only disappointing thing is that it is certain that it won’t have any effect on the quality of future science reporting in the Daily Nimbyist.
This article reminds me of an animals picture book I had when young, which among other things claims that beavers eat small fish. I’ve still got it – perhaps I should send them a copy?
So, would it be fair to say that you didn’t entirely agree with the article, Henry?
I wonder whether it was by Jan Moir – her article today has been trending on Twitter.
It’s nice to know that the Daily Mail just gets everything wrong.
My brain hurts.
None of this – not a dot, piece, shard, speck, globule, stain, necktie, sampler, stained-glass window, tattoo of this; not a fragment, mote, mustardseed, flopsy, mopsy, cottontail or peter of this; not a femto, pico, atto, groucho, harpo, zeppo or benveniste of this; not a smidgeon, pigeon, widgeon, gudgeon or dudgeon of this
LOL !!!!
Henry, I have been saying this for years, too. Just not as loudly. My estimate is that about 63.9% of everything in the news is, actually, wrong.
Closing thought: I wonder if the low quality of news in much of the U. S. and A. is related to the prevalence of various degrees of primitive suspicion in that country?
Yes.
Thanks for the larfs, Henry, even though diet soda made a painful, unauthorized journey through my modular mammalian nasopharynx and nasal cavity.
Do you post these comments also on the Daily Mail’s comment section?
Perhaps this is a good opportunity to ask: for a young child’s education (young = 3.5), what entertaining but relatively accurate dino “documentary” and or book would be recommended? Came across “Walking with dinosaurs” from your esteemed beeb, and my son was certainly enthralled by the animated critters, but it seems so 1999…. and the weird supposed reptile-mammal link seemed a little exaggerated.
Excellent post HG. Ranty and thoughtful and as well executed as the Editor of The Daily Nimbyist should be.
And, who the hell is/was Stephen Gately?
I always thought that humans descended from Darwinopterus since they are very similar. And I am not paleontologist.
Sorry Brooksie, but in the spirit of “Fair Play”, I feel compelled to
brandishingdisplaying the following.in the article they state: “Darwinopterus was terrifying 2ft long hawk-like creature had huge talons that were used to snare other pterodactyls and flying mammals in mid air and pin them to the ground. The flying dinosaur then used its powerful head and long jaw with rows of 15cm fangs to tear chunks of flesh from its victims.” Other than the pure fantasy of the in-flight meal (that was extinct a long time ago), the numbers seems a tab off…. 2 ft long but each fang is 15 cm long? That would make for a quite a mouthful of teeth, and the poor critter would keep poking its wings as it tried to fly.
15cm fangs?
OMG! Vampire pterosaurs!
Sir Graham – I always thought you’re is a gentleman with an very good education. Expected nothing less for you.
The Beast would be in trouble.
If humans evolved from mammals, why do we still have mammals?
@Richard W: thank -you! I also have it on good authority that whales are insects that live on bananas.
@Frank: I think one can safely disagree with the article. What makes me cross is that after more than twenty years of grand initiatives to improve the public understanding of science (PUS), and an explosion in graduates in things called ‘media studies’, that newspapers still exist that trade in such shamelessly shoddy journalism. This bolsters my suspicion (1) that PUS is little more than a small collection of Guardian readers wringing their hands at one another, and that the alleviation of public ignorance will not be made quicker by churning out people with master’s degrees in science communication (2) almost all journalism-related qualifications are worthless.
@RPG: please give confidence limits and sample size.
@Benoit – perhaps I should post an edited version – or just the link – on the Daily Mail’s site. My kids love Walking With Dinosaurs, even though I have philosophical problems about the way it’s presented as pure truth, when most of it is conjecture. I recommend my book A Field Guide To Dinosaurs, illustrated by the fabulous Luis V. Rey, as a book that doesn’t pretend to be anything other than fanciful – and is therefore ‘truer’.
@Ian: I don’t think the Editor of the Daily Nimbyist should be well executed. I think the Editor should be as badly executed as his/her paper. The guillotine shall be made especially blunt for the purpose. And Stephen Gately was a pterodactyl.
@Alejandro: au contraire. Humans were descended from Darwinius, via the missing link. I thought everyone knew that …;
@Cath: mammals were put there by God for our comfort and convenience. Didn’t you learn anything at school?
15cm fangs?
OMG! Vampire pterosaurs!
—
In the spirit of “Fair Play”, I shall in advance show one (yellow card) to myself for this TERRIFYING photochopped image I took of Simon Frantz down the pub after Science Online London 2009
For eating, Cath, for eating.
Benoit (‘hello’ from over here in Toronto BTW) – the Junior rwintles also like ‘Walking With Dinosaurs’ and the various other ‘Walking With…’ series. There’s also a whole set of ‘Prehistoric Park’ ones which are more fanciful but very popular in these parts – travel back to prehistoric times and attempt to catch dinos and their more antediluvian relatives.
Educational… somewhat. Dramatic… oh yes.
As for books, Henry wrote one. We don’t own it so I can’t comment, but I imagine he can fill you in on how excellent it is
in a thoroughly unbiased manner of course.Bugger. Comments totally crossed up there, although I do note that a certain Dr. HG of Cromer slightly failed to mention the full authorship of that there dino book.
Bugger again. Actually, he did mention it. Mea culpa, feed me to Darwinopterus.
I was going to interview the person who asks female passers-by whether the bus goes to the station. But it’s his night off.
@RPG: please give confidence limits and sample size.
I’m over-confident and hung like a hor-
wait. That’s not what you meant, is it?
No.
Ah. Sorry.
Don’t mention it.
I have had this passed on to me. It seems strangely appropriate here:
Perhaps vampire pterosaurs ate bad journalists.
Sad, but true. I look forward to the day when the Daily Nimbyist prints the headline
DAILY MAIL REPORTER EATEN BY LESBIAN VAMPIRES
though I’d settle for
HENRY GEE ATE MY HAMSTER
According to Mr. Darren Naish, I answer the following:
In short, Darwinopterus looks like a weird hybrid: a pterodactyloid head on a ‘rhamphorhynchoid’ body
R: The Rhamphorhynchoids and Pterodactyloids lived in the same period (Mesozoic). No wonder that emerge an new lineage Darwinopterus modularis
As we’ll see, Darwinopterus represents a transitional fossil of the sort that Darwin predicted
R: Yes, is a transitional lineage between Rhamphorhynchoids and Pterodactyloids,is obvious.
One interesting possibility suggested by this combination of features is that it was an aerial predator of other flying vertebrates
R: I do not agree. I’m sure that this specie it was specialized in catching certain species of fish, flying fish, and other. It is a diet typical of these lineages.
Is probably that investigate more about aspects of the morphology of Darwinopterus modularis and due to its large size with great membranous wings, with light and empty bones for to glide for the vast seas of the Mesozoic. The beak and teeth of this species have evolved to capture and hold the great fish and eating them.
KILLER PTERODACTYL ATE MY FLYING DINOSAUR
I’ve had an idea. How about if scientists confined themselves to publishing outrageously distorted pieces of research – then there would be a chance that, following application of the standard mangling process (a core module of journalism courses?), journalists might accidentally write something that was more or less correct… Oh, now I’ve had another idea, its been tried already hasn’t it…