This method is becoming a major component of my Ph.D. thesis. There are aspects of morphology (such as the presence of positional relationships of certain bones) that one’s bias cannot easily interpolate into the modeling process. The information obtained, however, gives us very important clues into the morphological evolution and functional morphology of these animals. I think that eschewing this kind of promising technology is scientifically irresponsible. New technology might not be perfect, but ignoring the virtues it does offer does not help science.

Compare CT with the serial grinding methods of yesteryear (of pre-Dark Ages (sensu Zimmer) time): fossils were actually ground up, one slice at a time, each slice was drawn, blown up, and traced into a sheet of wax. The result, was a larger-than-life wax model of you fossil, and no original fossil left over. This method offers higher resolution than CT, but comes with its own set of problems!

In any case, I am always eagerly awaiting the next Carl Zimmer book.

I’m not sneering at you. Really. I’m a big fan. And financial contributor, since I have all your books (even At the Water’s Edge), and I frequently link over here to your posts!

And no, I’m definitely not on the list of people to interview about CT scanning, although for Neandertals and genetics, I’m your guy.

Of course, if I could *get* CT data, I would probably use it. That’s the “utopian” part. Everybody doing this work says how great it is that everyone else will have access to their data. But none of this data is available. Data from only seven fossils (all out of the ground for more than thirty years, I might add) are available for *purchase*, none are available to the public.

Perhaps new data access guidelines at NSF will have an effect. But at the moment, consider the Sahelanthropus reconstruction that your article features. The CT reconstruction shows it likely had a vertical posture.

But how many skeptics were allowed to examine the CT model? I happen to know, because I am one, the answer is zero. Yet, the simple *fact* of the model simply ends debate on the issue, even though nobody else can independently replicate it. If I wanted to write up the features of the skull that are *inconsistent* with vertical posture, I can’t — because someone else can keep these data away from me.

So, I have grounds to complain about CT — from my perspective it has made the science worse. But do I have grounds to complain about your article?

Well, reading over my post, I don’t think I said anything that bad about it. Surely it is true that your *text* says that not everything high-tech is good. But everything else that you wrote about high-tech said it *is* good. That’s the definition of a *subtext*. I don’t think I’m the only one who would find that subtext there: as you say, Discover was running articles that month about how great new technology is going to be for science. In other words, it was an *intended* subtext. It’s not my fault the editors wanted articles trumpeting tech changes, and it’s not your fault you wrote one.

But as a scientist writing about my science, I have to give my own opinion (that’s why I’m a blogger and not a journalist), and I don’t think it was unfair to point out the agenda. I have done so with Discover articles before, and I’m a subscriber so I have some right (there’s that financial contribution again!).

I do mention the theme of the issue right in the first paragraph of my post. The article doesn’t give any information at all about why anyone would think CT scanning isn’t the cat’s pajamas; I give positives and negatives. And what’s the use of having a blog if I can’t be snarky once in a while? The idea that everyone will be happy when they have CT scans at last *is* utopian; the printed text of Tim White’s interview *doesn’t* mention CT scans. Perhaps it’s sin by omission, but whose fault is that? Most of the other interviews in the issue (this you didn’t mention) *did* focus on just the same topic as the article they accompanied.

So, just to sum up: I am still a fan of Carl Zimmer. I do not wish to rack up quotes in future Carl Zimmer articles. I do not think my post was unfair; it is more balanced on the positives and negatives of CT scanning than the original article. And my complaint is not that the CT interpreters are splitters and I’m a lumper; it is that the CT interpreters are acting like high priests of technology who don’t deign to allow their work to be replicated independently.

I think that a survey of people in the field would show this point of view is widely shared.

…not that I’d do anything like that

Actually, being dyslexic has an advantage – as I don’t trust my own ability to spell I always leave it to the computer to check, and as I may also read over grammar errors I always get the text-to-speech engine to read it back to me. The surprising upshot is that this system is so effective that I find errors in other people’s work.

We have a remarkable ability to error-correct as we read (but dyslexics don’t, so reading errors actually become compounded) so that we tend to correct our own errors and so don’t ‘see’ them. But in hearing a piece read back by another (person or computer, though a person may read over errors corrected on the fly as well) one tends to readily pick out the errors, as with the above example.

Kind Regards
Robert Karl Stonjek

As for Hawks’ case, he may feel that you didn’t include his opinion. (yes, his “no CT scan here” is really ludicrous.) But it’s unrealistic to quote him every time.

Anyway, cheers up, Carl.