Podcast 342 - A Bitter Pill
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The gang discusses two papers that use a lot of statistics to make their arguments. The first paper looks at the argument against the existence of megalodon nurseries, and the second paper assesses the importance of biotic vs abiotic patterns in extinction. Meanwhile, James has a new button, Amanda has school spirit, Curt tries to be civil, and we all need a drink…
Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition):
The friends look at two papers that use a lot of numbers to show if something may or may not have happened. The first paper looks at a big angry animal that lived in the sea and left behind a lot of really really big teeth. This big animal is thought to have had babies that lived in areas closer to the land. However, one paper came out and said that wasn't true and that the smaller ones were small because of the place where they lived made them not be able to get big. This paper looks at the other paper and says, no you are wrong, these ARE small because they are babies. This new paper runs the work the other paper did and shows that what they did was not right and that the work they did would show that these were babies.
The second paper looks at groups of animals across time that died out and tries to see if the death of these animals was because of other animals or because of things that happened in the places that they lived. This paper does a lot of numbers and says that, of the changes in the world that they looked at, the death of these animals did not seem to happen when those changes happen, or at least not most of the time. They also say that when these animals start to die, other animals that they say are kind of like them do well. So they say that this means the animals that are doing well made the other animals die. The way that they picked the animals that are doing well is a bit funny, and they say that these are wide guesses. The friends have a lot to say about this paper.
References:
Song, Haijun, et al. "Identifying biotic and abiotic roles in marine clade extinction." Nature Ecology & Evolution (2026): 1-14.
Ferrón, Humberto G., et al. "No evidence for Bergmann's rule in Otodus megalodon." Papers in Palaeontology 12.4 (2026): e70106.
