Hi Andrea, I can only applaud your courage to make such a breach on scientific ethics clear to the scientific community, it should be done more. In a time where scientific integrity is put higher and higher on the agenda (where it belongs), I find it striking that such practices as you unfortunately experienced still exist.
Looking forward to your (and your co-authors) paper! Best Dominique Prof. Dr. Dominique Adriaens Chair Educational Board Biology tel: +32 9 264.52.19, fax: +32 9 264.53.44 E-mail: dominique.adria...@ugent.be Ghent University – Department of Biology Evolutionary Morphology of Vertebrates & Zoology Museum K.L. Ledeganckstraat 35, B-9000 Gent BELGIUM Office location: click here http://www.fun-morph.ugent.be/ http://www.zoologymuseum.ugent.be/ -----Original Message----- From: andrea cardini <alcard...@gmail.com> Sent: donderdag 16 mei 2019 12:43 Cc: MORPHMET <morphmet@morphometrics.org> Subject: [MORPHMET] thanks for support Dear morphometricians, I would like to thank all those who openly and privately expressed their support on the issue of the BG-PCA papers, which I, regretfully, had to make public. I have to stress that I am no better than anyone else and certainly worse than very many. I make many mistakes (including on ethics). I can only do my best to acknowledge my errors and apologize. Unless I see another inaccurate report of what went (clearly) wrong, I am not going to pursue the issue further. Otherwise, I'll have to take more serious and formal steps. To be fully clear, as I live in the country where every wrong-doing is justified with claims about misunderstandings, there was no misunderstanding whatsoever but just a lack of the most basic respect towards coauthors. Story over, I hope. More apologies to Jim and Paul for my delays with our BG-PCA paper. They know the reasons, and I hope we may have soon a draft ready for submission. I anticipate that, although I may be first author, Jim will be the corresponding one: the long discussions and interactions with Jim and Paul, and especially Jim's extensive simulations (an order of magnitude better than mine) made us understand the problem much better and in fact, in the course of this, Jim found some other interesting issues (not strictly related to BG-PCA), that I hope he will publish in another paper of his. Sincerely Andrea On 16/05/2019 00:37, Una Vidarsdottir wrote: > Thank you Andrea for clarifying this. You are one of the most honest > and modest people I know, and I am glad that your side of this story > is now in the open. You have my support, as always. > Una > > On Wed, 15 May 2019, 06:33 andrea cardini, <alcard...@gmail.com > <mailto:alcard...@gmail.com>> wrote: > > I have to correct Fred on this: > > we accelerated our writing. My paper was the first to be finished, > > probably because it is a single-authored item by an emeritus with no > > other obligations, > > No, WE did not accelerate the writing. We started a cooperation, after > my small finding, and we were supposed to work all together on this. At > some stage, we heard no more from Fred and I suggested to have two > companion papers, but NEVER got an answer from Fred. > Months later, Fred let us know he was presenting and discussing results > (without ever asking me if I was OK with this). Finally, HE decided to > go on on his own, submit and announce in this list (again letting me > know after he was done). This is an accurate reconstruction of the > events. The other one is not and Fred was not unaware that I wasn't OK: > before the preprint he just announced, he (again without ever asking) > had already done an informal presubmission to a journal and the journal > has my written complaint about it. > > I let the morphometric community judge if this is the appropriate > behaviour. Certainly it is not what I teach students, but possibly > it is > what a famous retired emeritus and one of the leader of a scientific > community can do. > > All the best > > Andrea > > PS > On a technical side, as I never thought that CVA was the source of all > evil and BG-PCA a simple solution, here too I agree that the method has > some problems but I am more than confident that it can still be WISELY > applied in many cases. That small N (especially when one works with > small differences) and large p (numbers of variables) are not desirable > in very many types of analyses is written in all introductory textbook > on multivariate stats (at least those written in simple > non-mathematical > language for non-numerically skilled people like me). > In relation to this, there's a point I raised many times for years in > this list and in some of my papers: one uses the specific landmarks > required for her/his specific aim (I am in debt to Paul O'Higgins for > teaching me this). Semilandmarks are a great tool but should be used > when really needed and bearing in mind that almost inevitably p will > become big and that might create problems. There are different views on > this, including that having many points makes beautiful pictures: I > agree but probably most of the time that is not the aim of a biologist. > However, there might be cases when even with small N semilandmarks > might > be a huge step forward and possibly the best example I know it's the > virtual reconstruction of fossils (further analysis of those data may > then be harder, because of very big p and small N). > I definitely share the frustration of many taxonomists and > palaeontologists who have often very precious material and very small > samples and want to get the most out of them. Regardless of p/N > problems, estimates of means will be then inevitably inaccurate (and > sometimes even biased, as the sample could be few and maybe related > individuals of a rare species). Sometimes those means could be OKish > (macroevolutionary analyses with very large differences?); most of the > time they will be as accurate as trying to estimate the average body > height of Italian men using a sample of 10 men from the same small > region of Italy. Again, not my discovery: it's all in the introductory > stats textbook, but I myself too often forget about it. > > > > -- > > Dr. Andrea Cardini > Researcher, Dipartimento di Scienze Chimiche e Geologiche, > Università di > Modena e Reggio Emilia, Via Campi, 103 - 41125 Modena - Italy > tel. 0039 059 2058472 > > Adjunct Associate Professor, Centre for Forensic Anthropology, The > University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley WA 6009, > Australia > > E-mail address: alcard...@gmail.com <mailto:alcard...@gmail.com>, > andrea.card...@unimore.it <mailto:andrea.card...@unimore.it> > WEBPAGE: https://sites.google.com/site/alcardini/home/main > > FREE Yellow BOOK on Geometric Morphometrics: > https://tinyurl.com/2013-Yellow-Book > > ESTIMATE YOUR GLOBAL FOOTPRINT: > http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/calculators/ > SUPPORT: secondwarning.org <http://secondwarning.org> > > -- > MORPHMET may be accessed via its webpage at http://www.morphometrics.org > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "MORPHMET" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, > send an email to morphmet+unsubscr...@morphometrics.org > <mailto:morphmet%2bunsubscr...@morphometrics.org>. > -- Dr. Andrea Cardini Researcher, Dipartimento di Scienze Chimiche e Geologiche, Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Via Campi, 103 - 41125 Modena - Italy tel. 0039 059 2058472 Adjunct Associate Professor, Centre for Forensic Anthropology, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley WA 6009, Australia E-mail address: alcard...@gmail.com, andrea.card...@unimore.it WEBPAGE: https://sites.google.com/site/alcardini/home/main FREE Yellow BOOK on Geometric Morphometrics: https://tinyurl.com/2013-Yellow-Book ESTIMATE YOUR GLOBAL FOOTPRINT: http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/calculators/ SUPPORT: secondwarning.org -- MORPHMET may be accessed via its webpage at http://www.morphometrics.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MORPHMET" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to morphmet+unsubscr...@morphometrics.org. -- MORPHMET may be accessed via its webpage at http://www.morphometrics.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MORPHMET" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to morphmet+unsubscr...@morphometrics.org.
