Re: The long neck of the giraffe: a just-so story

The journal at the time had the highest IF in Zoology though...

jon.giuli... wrote:
Thanks for the references. I will look them up for fun. I don't have
asubscription so I can get the full-text version from them but I can
guarantee that if the article was properly peer-reviewed, they have not
once stated that they have proven how the neck evolved. It would be bad
science, having said that, that journal doesn't exactly have the
highest impact factor in science so maybe.

they can say that the original theory needs revising if it doesn't
explain the data, but I have to read it to see the data.

I have no doubts though that a text book would say that it was proved!

I loved the story though, thank you for sharing it.


This is ten years old, now, and is already in an intro biology text as
part of Chapter 1, the scientific method and revising ideas on the
basis of new evidence. The citation is:
RE Simmons and L Scheepers
Winning by a Neck: Sexual Selection in the Evolution of Giraffe
Amer Naturalist 148(5):771-786, 1996.

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