On the word, 'theory'

The Japanese language has two separate words equivalent to the two usages of the English word, 'theory'.


理論 [RI-RON]
A system of knowledge built on logic to systematically and uniformly explain individual phenomena. In addition, a purely logical knowledge corresponding to practice.


説 [SE-TSU]
1. A principle (belief) or claim for certain things.
2. Rumor.


I tried to translate the Japanese definitions as faithfully as I can into English. The first word, 'ri-ron', is equivalent to the scientific usage of the English word, 'theory' (as in 'the theory of evolution' or 'the theory of relativity'), while the second word, 'se-tsu', is equivalent to the common usage (more like 'I have a theory!'). Setsu doesn't need to be substantiated and can be wild claims.


It's a shame the English language doesn't have two separate words; we can avoid a lot of confusion.

Baryonyx walkeri skull

Following on from my previous post, here is another one of my theropod skull line drawings. However, this time, it's a little bit more original than the last one. At least a bit more effort went into it.

This is my 'reconstruction' of the Baryonyx walkeri skull and mandible. I based this on photos of various skull elements (Charig & Milner, 1997; Rayfield et al., 2009) and published reconstructions (Sereno et al., 1998; Rauhut, 2003) all scaled appropriately. I also base this on some personal observations of the specimen at the NHM. The arrangement of the postorbital portion of the skull is largely based on Rauhut (2003) (but ultimately on Irritator) but adjusted so that it fits with the braincase and quadrate. So overall, it looks slightly different from Rauhut's (2003) reconstruction.

My first impressions of Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones

When I first saw posters and merchandising for Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, I was immediately confused by the weird-looking stormtroopers, which I later found out to be the clone troopers. I was confused by two things: first, I had thought that stormtroopers were a uniquely Imperial thing; and second, I didn't understand why the clone trooper helmets resembled the Mandalorian helmet.

I've been a big Star Wars fan since even before I can remember, but I really got into the Expanded Universe when I was in my early teens, starting with Kevin J Anderson's Jedi Academy Trilogy and going on to Timothy Zahn's Thrawn Trilogy, I was pretty into the Star Wars Universe. I even had an encyclopaedia; Bill Slavicsek's A guide to the Star Wars Universe. And in it was an entry on the Clone Wars, which stated that it was a galactic conflict where the Jedi fought evil forces. And under the entry for Boba Fett it was stated that his armour was that of Mandalorian warriors, evil warriors that were defeated by the Jedi during the Clone Wars.

By the time Attack of the Clones came out, I had completely lost interest in the Expanded Universe so my impression of the Clone Wars and Mandalorians were pretty much based on Slavicsek's limited entries. So when I saw Mandalorian-looking stormtroopers, I immediately thought that these stormtroopers were the foot soldiers of the Mandalorians, and they would be the antagonists of the film. But what I didn't get was, why the stormtroopers would be fighting the Republic, which was obviously going to become the Empire. Stormtroopers are completely loyal to the Empire and to Emperor Palpatine, so how could they have been on the other side of the Clone Wars?

Having stormtroopers be clones as strongly suggested by their nearly identical appearances to clone troopers also nullified the purpose of the faceless stormtrooper masks of the original trilogy. Each stormtrooper is identical to the next one because they're wearing the armour and have their identity wiped out by Imperial Army propaganda and training. You don't need to be a genetically bred clone to be completely loyal and complacent to authority. Besides, it was amusing to see personality in the small talk between two stormtroopers in Star Wars. I know that clones are just like twins but the in-your-face message you get from stormtroopers=clones was that stormtroopers are not only identical in their uniform and ideology but also in their breeding and genetics. How lame is that? We're not all idiots that need to be told that stormtroopers don't have individualities, that was established in the original trilogy without any explanation about their backgrounds.

On top of that, I really disliked the idea that stormtroopers are derived from Mandalorian warriors. It gave too much credence to Boba Fett and I didn't like it. Sure Boba Fett is cool and all, but stormtroopers could be cool in their own unique way; they are the pinnacle of loyalty. Not everything has to be connected, you know. I guess the prequels kinda sucked in that it gave too much meaning to secondary characters like Darth Vader and Boba Fett; I mean why does the Universe have to revolve around these two characters?

But I digress

I hadn't seen any trailers for Attack of the Clones for some reason so I absolutely had no idea that the clones were going to be led by the Jedi. So imagine my surprise at the cinema…. Well, actually, I must confess, I was pretty impressed. Not by the story but by a swift efficient army of clone troopers; it was like seeing stormtroopers actually hit something!

As much as I like the clones (especially how they've been depicted in The Clone Wars TV series), on hind sight, it was a pretty lame idea to have the Grand Army of the Republic be completely composed of clones. As I mentioned above, my expectations for the Clone Wars was that Mandalorians were going to be featured heavily as one of the Jedi's primary adversaries. And I had this vague notion that clones may be part of the bad guys. Let's face it, clone armies in fiction are almost always used by bad people. So it fits with convention that a brutally evil force possibly led by Mandalorians would be breeding clone super soldiers to wage war on the Republic. And the Jedi have to fight them. So I was immensely disappointed when I found out that the evil forces threatening the Republic were none other than the retarded droid army that was only good for comic relief for five year olds (I shouldn't have to say more than, 'uh, uh, that doesn't compute, you’re under arrest' and 'roger roger').

Finally, the name Clone Wars suggests that the Republic fought clones. It is kind of odd to call a full scale war after your own soldiers, especially if that war was a galactic conflict that pretty much threatened the existence of the Republic. You don't call the Zulu Wars, the Red Coat Wars. No, it's called the Zulu Wars. Why? Because the British Empire fought the Zulu! So the Clone Wars is thus called because the Republic fought the Clones.

I really wish George Lucas had consulted me before he wrote the script…

[Note 04 Jan 2012: I must give credit where credit is due, I had forgotten about my thoughts about the Republic fighting clones until I saw the Plinkett Reviews on Red Letter Media. If you have not seen Plinkett Reviews, then I urge you to go watch them!]

Tyrannosaurus rex skull

A while ago, I created some line drawings of several theropods for a talk I was giving. One of those drawings was a Tyrannosaurus rex based on Stan, BHI-3033. It's a simple drawing so I haven't bothered with drawing out all the individual bones, but what I did do was to push the teeth into the sockets so that only the crowns are exposed. It's evident that a lot of the teeth have shot out of the sockets after the animal had died so that much of the roots are exposed. Presumably, this version should be closer to what the tooth row would have been like in life; I don't suppose roots would be exposed too much in life... The result is rather stunning in that the teeth are not as long as you typically see in T. rex skull restorations. And of course, the tips of the teeth form a more uniform and even biting surface. Perhaps I pushed them in too much and maybe the teeth were poking out a bit more, but it shows how much of a difference it makes.

Teaching kids to question things

Not palaeo or art I'm afraid, but kind of along the lines of critical thinking. When I was a kid, I lived in the United States. I also went to elementary (primary) school there. I forgot which grade it was or what class it was in, but one day, my teacher showed a video about the possibility that the Earth could be flat and how we can perceive it to be round; i.e. explanations on why the Earth looks round from outer space when it is really flat (something to do with light bending due to gravity). I was shocked, but apparently, our teacher's aim was to try and engage the kids to question established ideas, which in and of itself is fine. However, to this day, I fail to understand how she thought it would be appropriate to teach kids to question something that is observational, and present an alternative idea that has repeatedly been falsified. Fortunately (and perhaps surprisingly), our class was smart enough, and the video was met with the appropriate scepticism. However, I now wonder how many of my classmates were affected by this video...

Understandably, my father was enraged when I told him that evening during dinner.

My Google Sites page

I've set up a new Google Sites page for my research associated stuff, including some basic introductions into my research interests and current projects, but also a section for R tutorials. I've put up my three R tutorials that I've posted here with slight updates. The good thing about a website as opposed to a blog is that pages are easier to navigate (i.e. they don't get lost as time goes by and more and more posts are added as it does in blogs). I'll probably directly post my R tutorials over there from now on and limit my blog here for palaeoart and other palaeo-related posts. In time, I will also add R functions and scripts to my website for anyone wanting to replicate some of the things I do.

Palaeoart: Pachyrhinosaurus

Finally, I have completed my Pachyrhinosaurus! I started it around October of 2008, but with the subsequent job hunt and pushing papers out I hardly had time to make progress with it, and it ended up taking more than two years.

Anyway, here it is.



This is mostly done by referencing some photos given to me by Traumador Tyrannosaur... well, mostly the skull that is; the body is a generic ceratopsian. My fiancée asked me "why do you keep drawing the same dinosaur?" to which I replied "...but they all have different horns". I'm not sure I convinced her but that's essentially centrosaurs in a nutshell; very diverse cranial morphology in an otherwise conservative body plan. I even read somewhere that Greg Paul lumped all centrosaurs into the genus Centrosaurus in his newest book The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs (but I haven't read it yet).

When I draw dinosaurs, I usually just draw rough outlines of the animal with very limited skeletal reconstructions (but I do draw the skull), and I completely draw over the rough sketch to flesh out the creature on the same paper. I just draw on inspiration and mental imagery (while referencing skeletals to get the proportions about right), so I don't draw proper skeletals (as seemingly most palaeoartists do as I found out about two years ago). But this time, I actually drew a skeletal (but very rough) and used a tracing paper to flesh out the creature on a separate layer. I was initially planning on drawing successive layers of muscles and skin and whatnot but I got extremely lazy and ended up drawing just one layer of life restoration. For reference, the following is my rough skeletal:

As you can see, it is really a rough skeletal.

Back to the finished drawing. I thought it would be kind of neat to have some patterns, but my fiancée didn't like it, saying they look like scars. Anyway, I kept the patterns mostly to the face and a big one on the frill since I thought that's probably where ceratopsians would mostly want colours and shocking patterns; to intimidate male competitors and woo the ladies! So the patterns along the body kind of fade out towards the tail.

Thinking back, I've been drawing mostly centrosaurs when it comes to ceratopsians so maybe I should tackle a chasmosaurine for my next ceratopsian. Or I might try out a hadrosaur as a late entry to the Art Evolved thing. Or maybe I'll just get back to my non-avian and avian theropods...