Sigh….

I do wish Terrierman would allow for open discussion, and I’ve told him that. But it’s his blog, and telling Patrick Burns what to do is about as effective as telling a Jack Russell to stop what he’s doing when it’s really, really fun and come back when called.

Wasted breath, in other words.

Pai, I totally agree, and I’m picking out this bit because I want to emphasize the point. When working in an R&D company, and when working in a law firm (the two types of places that have filled most of my career as a librarian), the basic rule was, in doing research, always pull and read the cited sources. The sources do not always say what they are claimed to say. Sometimes this is misunderstanding; sometimes it is willful misunderstanding, or outright dishonesty—counting on the fact that many readers won’t go back to the cited sources.

There were some cases where it appeared to me that he had maybe skimmed the paper, found that it was too complex and involved numbers, symbols and charts that he didn’t understand, and just read the abstract. And than concluded that because the abstract said the paper “discussed” the role of mutation in producing a characteristic, for instance, that it must have concluded that the characteristic is bad, because mutation is bad.

I just hope no one tells him that small size in dogs (his beloved little terriers) is the result of a mutation in the gene controlling growth. :)

In the end, that’s the main message he peddles.. demonizing purebred breeders and spreading his bias disguised as ‘researched opinions’. Which is a shame, because many of his posts ARE factual, but just as often he simply parrots data that don’t even support his views as if they do. I guess since most people don’t bother to read the research papers themselves, they feel the simple fact he links to them means he -actually understands- what the data says and is interpreting them correctly. After the Chinese Crested fiasco, however, I would seriously doubt anything he says about dog genetics without actually reading his sources myself from neutral scientific sources. You can’t trust all of his ‘conclusions’, especially when it comes to topics he is clearly biased against. He constant mockery of overweight women has also gotten quite old.

Ark Animals * BadRap * Did A Cat Shit In Here?* Dogged* Dolittler* Frogdog Blog* Fugly Horse of The Day* Full Cry: A Hound Blog* ICanHasCheezburger* Lassie Get Help* Nathan Winograd* Patricia McConnell* Raised By Wolves* Retrieverman* Sarah Andrew’s RockAndRacehorses* Smartdogs* Terrierman’s Daily Dose* Vet On The Edge* Wildrun* Worms and Germs
* YesBiscuit!

A few of these updating schedules depends on what time of year it is, but when they do update, it is usually worth it. Sorry about the formatting, I am lazy and therefore used control c.

http://advocacy.britannica.com/blog/advocacy/

And I concede to everyone’s points about Terrierman’s pit bull stuff. I skip that and anything related to hunting.

I mostly read his posts about genetic defects in show dogs (I was a cell/molecular biolgy grad student once long ago).