Web geek stuff

I have worked up a little web site on the history of evolutionary biology, complete with scans and background images and so on. Current features include an annotated bibliography, a timeline, and mini-biographies.

Fossil mammal fans should consult my two North American mammal databases (NAMPFD and NAFMSD), which are now housed within the Paleobiology Database.

All of you are craven statistical weaklings, and thus thou shalt obey The Ten Statistical Commandments of Alroy.

Just for fun, I have created an image that illustrates my current work on mammalian ecomorphospaces. It represents what I claim to be the world's dumbest morphospace, in which body mass is contrasted with a super-simple joint index of isodonty and "carnassiality." The index is based on just four measurements: M1 width, m1 width, two longest lengths of any of the upper cheek teeth. When I get more data, I will use the morphospace to continue my studies of evolutionary dynamics.

There also are some links in the "research interest" pages for programs I have written, such as cta.c, which performs continuous track analysis (see the CTA tip sheet). All the programs are raw ANSI standard C code and should be compilable on any platform with a C-compiler worthy of the name. The programs are free but subject to the usual requirement that you acknowledge my authorship in print, not incorporate them into your own code without my permission, and generally be nice to me.

Where is the field of paleobiology heading? Check out my 1998 content analysis of the journals Science and Nature -- you might find the results startling.

Back to my home page? Dare ya.