Posted 8:35 AM by Robert

Can Mr. Adragna Backpedal from Behind a Snail?

Caught misreading my original three-sentence post on the recent death of Professor Gould and the articles to which it linked, Mr. Adragna returns to embarrass himself further.

Professor Gould was a professor of geology, as I originally said. Mr. Adragna wrote that I had got Professor Gould's "field of study" wrong. But I did not purport to describe a "field of study" - I linked to Associated Press articles for that. In his current post, Mr. Adragna says that "a full review of Gould's bio would show that he was not only a professor of geology, and was more widely regarded as a paelontologist [sic] and professor of zoology." But I did not say Professor Gould was "only" anything. Further, he was not only a paleontologist and professor of zoology and geology, so Mr. Adragna fails his own revised and re-tortured standards. Professor Gould held the position "professor of geology" for most of his Harvard career, as "a full review of Gould's bio" which I attached to my post makes clear. In short, Mr. Adragna got it all wrong and continues to get himself in deeper.

The significance of the rant regarding Professor Gould in Mr. Adragna's original post was as Mr. Adragna's pretext for failing to address my analysis in my totally unrelated answer to Ted Barlow. Mr. Adragna has still not provided any coherent statement on that part - so it seems he continues to abide by his pretext. Mr. Adragna should stop hiding behind Professor Gould's snails.

I will leave the reader to decide for herself the merits of Mr. Adragna's approach and reasoning. But I will not address matters relating to Professor Gould in this context again. It was inappropriate for Mr. Adragna to employ Professor Gould's memory the way he did - and it remains inappropriate. And, while it is a small matter, Mr. Adragna should really learn how to spell "paleontologist" (or "palaeontologist") if he's going to write about Professor Gould. The word is spelled phonetically - so Mr. Adragna may want to check his pronunciation, too.