Nonsensical headlines about the platypus genome.

Submitted by T Ryan Gregory on 8 May 2008 - 5:03pm.

I am swamped at present and have not had time to discuss the recent publications about the platypus genome. I had planned to wait and to talk about some interesting aspects, but the headlines are just too crazy to ignore. Fortunately, I believe Nimravid will be covering it soon and John Timmer gives a reasonable introduction. Some of the nonsense is from press interpretation, but some I think relates to the generally poor grasp of evolution that I see in many genomics articles. Phylogenetic fallacies aplenty.

By far the worst headline-

Gene map proves platypus is part bird, mammal and reptile (USA Today, reposted uncritically at RichardDawkins.net)

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As soon as I saw your title

Submitted by Hank on 8 May 2008 - 6:40pm.

As soon as I saw your title I had a feeling of dread. It's only a matter of time before you turn the guns on us.

You'll be happy to note that while USA Today editing is suspect (unless they syndicate your next article, in which case they are quite astute) educated science readers at Slashdot chose our version for their audience - 'Patchwork' DNA - Genome Of Platypus Decoded.

You can get away with almost anything if you put it in single quotes.

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The long blog post, if I had

Submitted by T Ryan Gregory on 8 May 2008 - 8:17pm.

The long blog post, if I had time, would have been "Phylogenetic fallacies: the case of the patchwork platypus"!

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Mike says he is going to do

Submitted by Hank on 8 May 2008 - 9:11pm.

Mike says he is going to do one. I am trying to convince him to keep this as his opening:

"I haven't contributed a single thing to the platypus genome project, but since I sit one floor above where it was sequenced, I consider myself somewhat of an authority on the subject, and here's what's wrong with other people's ideas about it."

But he says he was just kidding. It parallels most of the stories I have seen nicely.

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Yeah, the headlines are

Submitted by adaptivecomplexity on 8 May 2008 - 9:29pm.

Yeah, the headlines are absurd. I'll have some comments tonight.

OK Hank, you've convinced me to keep the line!

Mike

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Actually, after skimming the

Submitted by Carlo Artieri (not verified) on 8 May 2008 - 9:06pm.

Actually, after skimming the article, I'm not sure if the title bugs me as much as USA Today's insistence on using the meaningless 'Scientists believe...' rather than 'All observable evidence points to/suggests/agrees/etc.'. It's depressing.

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