Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Dr. Davey F. Wright ⛏️🦕🧬

@daveyfwright.bsky.social

3.1K followers 140 following 1.4K posts

Paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, & punk rock enthusiast. Assistant Professor & Curator of Invertebrate Paleontology. U Oklahoma/Sam Noble Museum of Natural History. Macroevolution, phylogenetic methods, echinoderms https://daveyfwright.wordpress.com

daveyfwright.wordpress.com

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Dr. Davey F. Wright ⛏️🦕🧬 @daveyfwright.bsky.social · Sep 2

New updated preprint! Many thanks to reviewers for their suggestions and helpful advice for improving our manuscript. Check it out if you're interested in fossils, phylogenies, and modeling morphologic evolution! 🧪

Assessing the impact of character evolution models on phylogenetic and macroevolutionary inferences from fossil data

Understanding the evolution and phylogenetic distribution of morphologic traits is fundamental to macroevolutionary research. Despite decades of major advances and key insights from molecular systemat...

www.biorxiv.org

1 13 24

Reposted by Dr. Davey F. Wright ⛏️🦕🧬

Esther Schindler @estherschindler.bsky.social · 1d

I just saw someone use the abbreviation “AI;DR” and I’ll be laughing for a while.

25 2.1K 6.3K

Dr. Davey F. Wright ⛏️🦕🧬 @daveyfwright.bsky.social · 2d

"AI is the asbestos we are shoveling into the walls of our society and our descendants will be digging it out for generations"

JB_AU @jbau.bsky.social · 9d

This whole section really.

Finally: AI cannot do your job, but an AI salesman can 100% convince your boss to fire you and replace you with an AI that can't do your job, and when the bubble bursts, the money-hemorrhaging "foundation models" will be shut off and we'll lose the AI that can't do your job, and you will be long gone, retrained or retired or "discouraged" and out of the labor market, and no one will do your job.
AI is the asbestos we are shoveling into the walls of our society and our descendants will be digging it out for generations:

16 34

Dr. Davey F. Wright ⛏️🦕🧬 @daveyfwright.bsky.social · 2d

I love how nature documentaries sound like they're describing a Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting when talking about plants and animals doing totally normal stuff

"In the deep dark forest, one animal begins an epic quest into the abyss where the trees cast spells and zombies roam the woodlands"

1 2 13

Dr. Davey F. Wright ⛏️🦕🧬 @daveyfwright.bsky.social · 3d

Surprisingly (to me), I found this Hutchinson line from a 1957 article titled, The Future of Marine Paleoecology

Dr. Davey F. Wright ⛏️🦕🧬 @daveyfwright.bsky.social · 3d

"Uninspired prophecy is notoriously dangerous; all that we can do is to assess probabilities, in full confidence that the improbable will sometimes happen." - G. Evelyn Hutchinson 🧪

1 3 16

Reposted by Dr. Davey F. Wright ⛏️🦕🧬

Emily Troyer @fishfetisher.bsky.social · 3d

Happy Anatomically Incorrect Invertebrate season to all who celebrate

A fake snail with a skull for a shell and bony body

5 34 140

Dr. Davey F. Wright ⛏️🦕🧬 @daveyfwright.bsky.social · 4d

TFW scientific prose makes you smile. I love this line from a 2010 paper by @peterjwagner3.bsky.social and @katelyons.bsky.social

Dr. Davey F. Wright ⛏️🦕🧬 @daveyfwright.bsky.social · 4d

"...although analyses of extant phylogenies can estimate extinction rates and even suggest mass extinctions, they cannot imply trilobites ever existed or that sphenodonts (now represented only by the tuatara) were once as diverse as lepidosaurs (lizards and snakes)." #FossilFriday 🧪

1 4 17

Reposted by Dr. Davey F. Wright ⛏️🦕🧬

Dr. Davey F. Wright ⛏️🦕🧬 @daveyfwright.bsky.social · 5d

New paper!

"Fossil tip-dating reveals novelties on evolutionary and diversification trends in three Late Ordovician brachiopod genera (Atrypida, Anazygidae)" Yay for brachiopods! 🧪

Fossil tip-dating reveals novelties on evolutionary and diversification trends in three Late Ordovician brachiopod genera (Atrypida, Anazygidae) | Journal of Paleontology | Cambridge Core

Fossil tip-dating reveals novelties on evolutionary and diversification trends in three Late Ordovician brachiopod genera (Atrypida, Anazygidae) - Volume 99 Issue 2

www.cambridge.org

1 10 21

Reposted by Dr. Davey F. Wright ⛏️🦕🧬

Dr. Davey F. Wright ⛏️🦕🧬 @daveyfwright.bsky.social · 5d

🚨We're hiring! The Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History is seeking a tenure-track split position as Assistant Curator of Ichthyology and Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences. Please retweet & share with colleagues! 🐟🐠🧪

Apply here: apply.interfolio.com/174674

A job ad with multiple images, including the exterior of the museum, a view of collections (jars on shelves), and pictures of some cool, tropical fish but I don't know enough about fish to describe them other than to say they're pretty colors of yellow and blue/green

2 54 62

Dr. Davey F. Wright ⛏️🦕🧬 @daveyfwright.bsky.social · 4d

the thing about arsonists is they often cosplay as firefighters

1 2

Reposted by Dr. Davey F. Wright ⛏️🦕🧬

Professor John R. Hutchinson @johnrhutchinson.bsky.social · 5d

Great issue of Phil Trans B @royalsocietypublishing.org on the BIG QUESTION of the origin of life: royalsocietypublishing.org/toc/rstb/202...

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences: Vol 380, No 1936

royalsocietypublishing.org

2 6

Dr. Davey F. Wright ⛏️🦕🧬 @daveyfwright.bsky.social · 5d

Few can pull it off--and many don't need to IMO. I love bands like Bad Religion and the Descendents because their sound was basically perfect from the start and became more refined over time. (They're both incredible live, too.) AFI's sound evolved both gradually & in jumps but it's all good stuff

Dr. Davey F. Wright ⛏️🦕🧬 @daveyfwright.bsky.social · 5d

I love their entire discography but Art of Drowning and Burials are among my favorites. This record is very different but quite good!

1 1

Dr. Davey F. Wright ⛏️🦕🧬 @daveyfwright.bsky.social · 5d

I'm old enough to have been a fan of AFI from their punk rock roots to their current era of Bauhaus-inspired post-punk goth pop and I've loved it all. Their new album is absolute fire and I desperately need to see them live again 🔥

Behind the Clock

YouTube video by AFI - Topic

www.youtube.com

1 1

Dr. Davey F. Wright ⛏️🦕🧬 @daveyfwright.bsky.social · 5d

Multiple things can be true: one does not have to post every thought that goes through their head but also social media is doesn't have to solely be an extentsion of your job and/or professional life. It's okay to be genuine

1 4

Dr. Davey F. Wright ⛏️🦕🧬 @daveyfwright.bsky.social · 5d

that graph makes me sad for graptolites

1 1

Dr. Davey F. Wright ⛏️🦕🧬 @daveyfwright.bsky.social · 5d

Okay clearly my memory's terrible * but * you * did * know the plot I was thinking about so that's awesome

1 3

Dr. Davey F. Wright ⛏️🦕🧬 @daveyfwright.bsky.social · 5d

Wait--I thought you had started something like that a while back (not for tip-dating but for any sort of computational phylogenetic treatment). Am I making that up? I swear I remember a graph and thinking there were way more ammonoid phylo studies than I realized...

Dr. Davey F. Wright ⛏️🦕🧬 @daveyfwright.bsky.social · 5d

This one is from Mariana Vilela-Andrade's awesome MS thesis research and features co-authors Colin Sproat & @astigall.bsky.social!

Dr. Davey F. Wright ⛏️🦕🧬 @daveyfwright.bsky.social · 5d

New paper!

"Fossil tip-dating reveals novelties on evolutionary and diversification trends in three Late Ordovician brachiopod genera (Atrypida, Anazygidae)" Yay for brachiopods! 🧪

Fossil tip-dating reveals novelties on evolutionary and diversification trends in three Late Ordovician brachiopod genera (Atrypida, Anazygidae) | Journal of Paleontology | Cambridge Core

Fossil tip-dating reveals novelties on evolutionary and diversification trends in three Late Ordovician brachiopod genera (Atrypida, Anazygidae) - Volume 99 Issue 2

www.cambridge.org

1 10 21

Dr. Davey F. Wright ⛏️🦕🧬 @daveyfwright.bsky.social · 5d

2 54 62

Dr. Davey F. Wright ⛏️🦕🧬 @daveyfwright.bsky.social · 5d

Amazing. I hope it also had 5 star reviews lol

Dr. Davey F. Wright ⛏️🦕🧬 @daveyfwright.bsky.social · 5d

Very weird to discover Elements of Paleontology is somehow being sold on Amazon, including my paper w/ Laura Soul about PCMs for paleontologists (we don't receive $ for any copies sold & it's freely available from the Paleontological Society)

I appreciate the two anonymous 5 star reviews, though 😅

1 1 8

Dr. Davey F. Wright ⛏️🦕🧬 @daveyfwright.bsky.social · 6d

Dr. Grant: "Looks like we're out of a job."

Dr. Malcolm: "Don't you mean extinct?"

James Lamsdell, PhD @fossildetective.bsky.social · 6d

Actual highlight of yesterday was having a woman in the botanical gardens overhear us talking about work and say "Oh, I didn't think paleontologists existed anymore".