I should have pointed out that the J Ruben thing was connected to the journal Science as well as the DL.
You see, JR showed up in paleo in the early 90s, thinking he knew how to do science better than we mere paleos, and he and his ace team would really show us how to do paleometabolics, the conclusion being that dinosaurs had reptilian, not avian-mammal like power systems.
For some reason JR had an in at Science, which published a long series of papers he senior authored. The papers were very bad because the team would do a few measurements on small samples of living animals, extrapolate from that to dinosaurs, and viola they were bradyenergetic ectotherms, pay no attention to what the dolts Bakker, Horner, Padian, Paul et al were saying. Full of errors as well as inadequate samples. they should have been rejected.
One of the papers made the news big time. They measured the nasal passages of a few modern animals, concluded that tachyenergetic birds and mammals have to have broad passages to accommodate large respiratory conchae to process incoming air, measured the nasal passages of a few dinos which seem to have the narrow passages of low metabolic rate reptiles, and ergo dinosaurs were like the latter. I have since thoroughly discredited this thesis with large scale analysis in Dinosaurs of the Air and my chapter in The Complete Dinosaur 2nd ed.
At the time I noted a big problem on the DL. Obviously, not all dinosaurs had wee nasal passages. Like ceratopsian duh. A screamingly obvious fact that JR et al missed or evaded in their paper. On the DL I snarkily commented that one could park a Buick in the nose of Triceratops.
JR was in the habit of calling me every once in awhile to talk paleometabolics. He thought he could reform us paleos. Never liked the fellow much and the calls were not fun. After the above DL comment was when he called and threatened to become my enemy. Never called again:)
Anyhow that JR had an in at Science shows how politics can be a major factor at getting published there, and elsewhere.
For that matter, Bakker had an in at Nature back in the day, where he published his early work on high MR dinos that made the initial news on the dinosaur renaissance. Looking back they were not all that rigorous. But unlike Ruben, he was basically right.
GSPaul
-----Original Message-----
From: Gregory Paul <gsp1954@aol.com>
To: sauropoda@gmail.com <sauropoda@gmail.com>; pristichampsus@yahoo.com <pristichampsus@yahoo.com>
Cc: ron.orenstein@rogers.com <ron.orenstein@rogers.com>; dinosaur-l@usc.edu <dinosaur-l@usc.edu>
Sent: Wed, Jul 22, 2020 4:11 pm
Subject: Re: [dinosaur] RETRACTION: Oculudentavis, new smallest known Mesozoic bird in amber from Cretaceous of Myanmar
As per Nudds & Dyke undermeasuring the central shafts of the primary feathers in Archaeopteryx by a factor of two in a paper in Science, which I had to correct with a reply (https://science.sciencemag.org/content/330/6002/320.2.abstract). It is the only paleoitem I have published in Science, which always rejected my submissions, which I suppose tells you something.
Afterward Dyke threatened me among the posters at an SVP meeting, warning to never to cross him again again. Not making that up. John Ruben did the same via phone back in the day when he said I would be his enemy if I ever posted a criticism of him again on the DL. Like I cared.