The preferred paleontologist replies

At the beginning of this month, I ran a poll asking folks which paleontologist they would prefer working with: Josh Smith, the alleged sexual predator, Spencer Lucas, the alleged plagiarist, or Marcus Ross, the self-avowed young Earth paleontologist. Dr. Ross won the poll handily, and as it turns out, he is a reader of the Lounge. He sent me the following email, followed permission to post:

Dear Dr. Lemming,
Thanks for including me in your recent paleo poll, I thought the idea was hilarious. I’ve enjoyed checking your blog in the year or so since the NYT article came out. I have to say, I really enjoyed your blog post on the topic, as you took a far (far!) more measured and thoughtful approach to the issue.
Though we will disagree on issues of Earth history, thanks for being civil, and for finding ways to have fun with the news of the day. And I’m very pleased that the readers of your blog would pick me as a preferred co-worker. Dubious award or not, I now know that there exist entities in the Great Chain of Being below “trained parrot” young-Earthers (a la PZ Meyer’s description of me).
Cheers,
Marcus

Anyway, I’d like to thank Dr. Ross for having the grace and character to react so well to my sometimes callous sense of humor. I am still waiting for concession speeches from Drs. Smith and Lucas, but I suspect that they are respectively busy ogling perspective students or forming judicial committees which will impartially decree that 7 is larger than 32.

Comments are currently open, but please stay civil. I don’t want to come back from the field to find that the organic slime of the internet has spontaneously evolved into a fauna known colloquially as the troll.