Re: A conversation with Larry Martin

[David Marjanovic <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

I can't comment over there, so...

> As I say in my post, as much as  I criticized Martin on this list, I
> don't know many other scientists who would take the time to write
> such a long and detailed exchange with an unknown undergraduate
> amateur.

Sure. But, judging from your blog post, he did quit in the middle of it.

Yes, you were an unknown undergraduate amateur, and Martin was 
presumably paid to publish peer-reviewed papers with an impact factor, 
not to reply to you. Time is limited, that's fine. _However_, the 
questions you brought up are so important (not just "were", but still 
are!) that I'd have expected him to address them in one of his following 
papers -- or at the very least conference presentations. To the best of 
my knowledge, he never did that in nine years, and neither has Feduccia 
or Lingham-Soliar or anyone else in that camp ever done it. Why 
aren't... at least the tail fins of aquatic salamanders from the Yixian 
and Jiufotang Fms preserved as individual frayed collagen fibers that 
look like feathers? Why?