SVP Ethics Code

[mkir...@gmail.com]

The email that I received today about the 2024 SVP Annual Meeting includes a link to quite an extensive list of mandatory and aspirational things to do or not do:

https://vertpaleo.org/code-of-conduct/#meetingcode

I don't remember so many things having to be spelled out before.  

[Heinrich Mallison]

Reading these standards I am starting to wonder if commercial fossil sellers will this year be present or banned. I do have some inkling......double standards, this, that....

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[Gregory Paul]

At I think it was the 2010 SVP meeting I was verbally abused and threatened among the posters by an up and coming and now fairly prominent researcher over my refutation in Science of a paper he had co-authored. It was quite the display. I told a lot of people about it at the meeting and since. Had the current code been in place I would have certainly registered a complaint and he would have been in considerable trouble:) There has been a behavior code for the meeting for some years now. I am not sure it was as extensive as it is this year. One can suspect there have been past incidents that led to a code, I have no idea if any recent events caused the code to be extended. That women are now very prominent in SVP presumably has a lot to do with this, the organization is no longer a men's club. Although there have long been a number of women in VP since WW2, probably more so than usual in science back in the day. 

GSPaul

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[mkir...@gmail.com]

When I was still hosting the Dinosaur Mailing List breakfast, a person threatened to “confront” me at a meeting.  I notified one of the members of the host committee, and he wrote to the man and strongly urged him not to attend.  I warned the DML subscribers who had RSVP’d for the breakfast what the person’s intentions were and also told the security office at the hotel.  Many of the men (and some of the women!) who were going to attend the breakfast said that they would welcome the chance to confront the person before he got to me.  This person has since died (not my fault).  

[Russell Engelman]

I have had paleoartist friends (by which I mean people who were actively involved in the research side of paleontology by creating scientific illustrations and life reconstructions for scientists, not just a '"dino-fan" who liked to draw dinosaurs) quit SVP for, among other reasons, harassment and insensitive comments from big-name researchers basically telling them they were second class citizens and "not real paleontologists". The offending researchers are still prominent and well-respected members of the community to this day, and I've heard similar comments from younger SVP members describing paleoartists as "disposable".

There's been a lot of squirrely stuff and double standards when it comes to ethics at SVP, and this change in policy has probably been a long time coming. As much as I would like to say it might be in response to the tyrannosaur session at SVP 2023, because there were a lot of discussions at that meeting about the need for stricter ethics and conduct standards after something happened there, it sounds lik this was in the works long before then. Though it seems unlikely it will do much, and I actually worry how easily this can be used to shut down discussion. As a rather tall person with a naturally loud voice, I know firsthand how easily something as simple as disagreeing with someone openly can be labeled as "hostile".

[Taissa Rodrigues]

Hi everyone,

I appreciate reading all your concerns. The list of mandatory and aspirational standards is not new to this annual meeting, but it is relatively recent (it has been developed in recent years).

Anyone can report ethics violations. You can use an online system, Navex, which the Paleontological Society also uses, or simply write at saf...@vertpaleo.org. Here's a page describing how to do that: https://vertpaleo.org/protocols-for-ethics-violation-reporting/. 

One of the possible outcomes of an ethics violation might be a person being banned from one or more meetings. But this only happens after an extensive review of the case by the Ethics Committee, and the possible outcomes are decided by the Executive Committee. We take this job very seriously, but it is not a substitute for calling the police if someone is threatened at a meeting, for example. (I'm really sorry to read about that incident; how awful!)

Taissa

https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/DinosaurMailingGroup/8f38c9f3-7816-4613-86b9-0be1990c0080n%40googlegroups.com

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[Mike Habib]

Our paleoartist colleagues have often endured some of the worst of it, indeed. (See above, GSP’s story - thank you, Greg, for sharing your experience.) Making the most of a terrible thing, perhaps this can be the catalyst to encourage renewed efforts at paleoart-centered events at SVP. It would be magnificent to at least get another gathering organized this Fall.

Cheers,

—Mike

Michael B. Habib, MS PhD
Director of Data Visualization
Adjunct Associate Professor of Medicine
UCLA Cardiac Arrhythmia Center
Division of Cardiology
Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Medical Building
100 Medical Plaza, Suite 660
Los Angeles, CA 90095
MBH...@mednet.ucla.edu

Research Associate, Dinosaur Institute
Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History
900 W Exposition Blvd. Los Angeles, 90007

biology...@gmail.com
+1 (443) 280-0181

On Jul 24, 2024, at 9:50 PM, Russell Engelman <neovena...@gmail.com> wrote:

I have had paleoartist friends (by which I mean people who were actively involved in the research side of paleontology by creating scientific illustrations and life reconstructions for scientists, not just a '"dino-fan" who liked to draw dinosaurs) quit SVP for, among other reasons, harassment and insensitive comments from big-name researchers basically telling them they were second class citizens and "not real paleontologists". The offending researchers are still prominent and well-respected members of the community to this day, and I've heard similar comments from younger SVP members describing paleoartists as "disposable".

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/DinosaurMailingGroup/8f38c9f3-7816-4613-86b9-0be1990c0080n%40googlegroups.com.

[Gregory Paul]

A bit of a clarification, also more comments on an important subject, and a proposal. 

When I got involved in paleo word was that the paleontologists did not respect the paleo artists all that much. This was probably sometimes true, but then Knight and Zallinger don't seem to have had problems (have not read the Knight bio though). Since I got into the biz in the late 70s I have not had much trouble regarding my paleoart, until recently in an important way. 

One explanation is that lost of paleoscientists have very little in the way of artistic sensibility and have pretty much no ability to judge paleoart. Good old Dale Russell ruined Ely Kish's work by making her show the dinosaurs in starvation condition. First people to see my art were Nick Hotton and Jack Macintosh my first visit to back area of Smithsonian in 76 and they both had wonderful things to say about it. A year later Bakker bashed my work which I appreciated because he was the first person who knew what he was talking about being a paleoart -- a week or two later he invited me to illustrate his upcoming book that you have never seen. 

I did get a lot of reasonably polite blow back for putting feathers and fluff on small dinosaurs -- until the NYC SVP in 96 when Sinosauropteryx was revealed to the world and I could then gloat and still do:)

The real issues have been over my science, as well as personality conflicts. After PDW came out in 88 there was an absurdly long review in Scientific American by Harvard people as I recall who used it as a proxy for going after Bakker. I think their one comment on the art was there was too much of it in the book when of course there can never be too much art in a dinobook like duh. 

In the 90s John Ruben had some sort of in at Science and published a series of papers showing that dinosaurs were ectothermic, including how theropods had crocodilian liver pump respiratory systems  and were not close relations of birds, and dinosaurs lacked the large nasal cavities needed for the turbinals needed for high metabolic rates. At the time on this list I noted that one could park a Buick in the big nasal passages of ceratopsids and JR gave me a call in which he was seething and warned me to never do something like that again or they would be consequences like I cared. Probably he was enjoying getting all the PR on his tenure path from the Science papers and was freaked out at it being put at risk. I suspect much the same when I was verbally assaulted at the SVP  meeting which also involved the journal Science. People going for tenure can be very touchy. 

A couple of years ago i senior authored a paper naming new species of Tyrannosaurus that seemed to get a lot of people really really upset in case you had not heard about that. 

In any case it was my scientific research that has caused problem much more than the art.

But recently I have been having a lot of trouble with the profile-skeletals in the technical literature, sometimes along with Asier L. Most paleos appear to have no clue to how they are done, and will in technical reviews attack their accuracy or scientific value. This occurs in various ways. Norman did that big opus on Scelidosaurus with lots of measurements. Those made all past restorations including mine obsolete, and Norman's own skeletal shows the skull much too large for an adult. So I did a new one of the adult and also a juvenile. That showed ed the young ones are too short armed to be normally quadrupedal, so did a little paper on the locomotory ontogeny using the skeletals. It was nastily attacked in both reviews. There was not the slightest respect shown for my 40 years of doing meticulous skeletals. In no case did either reviewer actually show there was any error in any measurement in the skeletals. It was all vague discontents and idle criticisms. One reviewer praised Scott Hartman's old skeletal and said my was wrong in comparison and questioned why I did not include it in the discussion. No measurement comparison was offered. Scott's restoration was done prior to the new description and like all others done back in the day is not correctly proportioned not his fault, and is only online and should not be cited in a technical work. The paper was rejected and I have not had the time to resubmit it. 

My initial technical stab at showing that the Triassic super ichthyosaurs were no where close to being as titanic as has been published in that pesky Science and elsewhere was rejected because I am using "old fashioned" methods rather than the computer BS people these days like to put out. No errors in the ink skeletals were cited because there are none -- people keep citing "S" sikanneinsis as being 21 m when the quarry map in the original paper actually marks out 17, as does a skeletal, no one bothered to check the literature or do the work which is not actually all that hard. What is true is that since then the assorted authors have checked by skeletals in the field guide and have realized they are correct, so they are no longer publishing mass estimates because they will then have to admit they were way way off at estimates of 45-80 tonnes when no known sea reptile beats 20. Asier and I submitted a paper on Perucetus and it was rejected twice without the reviewers ever bothering to show that there was an error, and one getting after us for noting that female blue whales are the biggest as being "sexist", and then refusing to finish the review because of our "violence" in demanding that future extraordinary mass estimates be verified by a volumetric skeletal model. 

To deal with this nonsense it should be required that those who review papers that rest on the results of skeletals be those who do skeletals themselves, and actually know what they are talking about. At the very least if reviewers don't like a skeletal they should be required to actually measure the elements of the skeletal and show where it is wrong. If they can't they can't be allowed to reject the paper. If they do so anyway the review must be be rejected. Unfortunately there are no enforced standards for reviewing papers which is kind of odd when you think about it. 

What is going on is that many paleontologists don't know what a professional paleoillustrator puts into producing a rigorous restoration -- they seem to think we just sort of take a guess at it -- and are therefore dismissive of such efforts, and wave it away in reviews and otherwise. That modern biology is moving away from whole animal biology is not helping matters. 

 

To get to the bigger picture, I was not aware until this thread that young paleoartists are still getting grief, assumed that situation has improved. I had long known of the financial issues which are probably interlinked. Paleoart is a commodity in which squeezing out as much work from the artists for as little compensation as possible is the goal via bidding wars and down pricing by begging poverty of the contractor etc. This is true of museums as well as scientists (an exception has been the AMNH which upfront states what they are willing to pay and it is a reasonable amount). The rates advised by the National Guild of Natural History History Illustrators? Ha-ha-ha. Because they know they can exploit the paleoartists is a reason some researchers treat them like dirt financially and otherwise.  

SVP kinda tried to help out with the Lazendorf prizes. But when you think about it what does the competition really do other than increase the competitive attitude between paleoartists? We don't need more competition. (This is a reason I have never entered a contest -- or judged one. Another reason is that submitting art requires work.)

What needs to be done is along these lines. SVP assemble a special permanent committee regarding paleoart. This will issue a set of rules regarding how paleontologists must treat paleoartists with full and due respect, with a mechanism for complaints to be registered and addressed. Even more importantly, require institutions and persons who contract for work to not do bidding wars, to pay the rates recommended by the above named guild, and include in grant proposals a solid budget for any paleoart involved in the project (the applicant can cite the SVP regs in the proposal). 

Also, many complain about how it has become a fad among folks with money to purchase at enormous expense fossil dinosaurs. This when paleoartists go begging for private contracts when those are entirely ethical. How to kill two avian dinosaurs with one sauropod gastrolith? Make an effort to get rich people to pay paleoartists big bucks for producing assorted 2 and 3-D art for their homes instead of original mounted skeletons -- while getting them to fund digs and put up casts along with their fab art illustrating their prizes. Make domestic paleoart cool and hip, and ethical to own compared to in-home fossils. This is something SVP can do too, rather than allowing some researchers to be jerks to those who illustrate prehistoric creatures. 

Another idea is to put together a Guild of Paleoillustrators with a set of pricing minimums. This was discussed back in the 80s but never went anywhere, in part because of the free market thing. That worked out great. 

If any are interested these matters can be discussed further. 

GSPaul

https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/DinosaurMailingGroup/BC2B82E8-9D75-4010-84EA-8C70C5F0B045%40gmail.com

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[Mike Taylor]

Folks,

When you tell stories like "harassment and insensitive comments from big-name researchers basically telling them they were second class citizens and "not real paleontologists"", but do not name the Big Name Researchers, you are missing a big chance to help by (A) warning others to avoid to toxic behaviour of these individuals, and (B) bringing about some possibility of their being held to account.

I know it seems "professional" to withhold names, but please. Something more important is at stake here.

So: "The offending researchers are still prominent and well-respected members of the community to this day": that's because they have not been called out by name.

See also: https://svpow.com/2020/09/11/name-the-journal-shame-the-publisher/

-- Mike.

[Russell Engelman]

Dear Mike,

Being professional isn't the problem. The problem is concerns of retaliation from the individuals in question or their friends. That has also been a common theme I've noted from conversations with members of SVP. The DML is a semi-public forum where the posts are archived for posterity and if any of us named names here we are essentially opening ourselves up to trouble. It's like people say "say and forget, write and regret".

The paleontology community is so small it is impossible to avoid bad actors, and because it is so small you can effectively never escape your abusers. They are still going to be on your grant committees, reviewing your papers, at SVP meetings, etc. Which means the best strategy for survival is to avoid being a target.

Add to that that many of the offending people are well-respected or well-connected and have a lot of friends, with most of the derogatory or unprofessional behaviors happening unbeknownst to them behind closed doors. Paleontologists have a tendency to lock ranks really fast whenever they feel someone is threatening the reputation of one of their own. I've had to deal with issues with colleagues retaliating or making access to museum collections difficult because they thought I said something negative about one of their friends.

What generally happens in these situations is that when a (usually senior) paleontologist hears that their colleague has engaged in something bad, they go "that would never happen, I know them personally". Overlooking they often only see that colleague once a year at meetings and don't have a good feel for their disposition when not putting on a public face. So they assume the accuser must be at fault, whether that be a student seeking help dealing with an abusive advisor or a junior colleague describing unethical behavior.

On top of that if you name names you get a reputation in the community of being "controversial", "a complainer", "a troublemaker", or "a gossiper". Which can lead to serious ostracization. Or it destroys social relationships you need to keep maintained for one reason or another.

I mean, all you have to do is look at a few high-profile cases that happened within the past decade and a half in the vertebrate paleontology community. Virtually all the patterns I'm talking about happen there.

Sincerely,

Russell

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[Mike Taylor]

Hey, Russell,

I don't really disagree with any of that. But so long as those of us who know what's going on keep covering our own asses, what's going on is going to keep going on. If we want change, we have to step out, not just complain on the sidelines.

See for example http://www.miketaylor.org.uk/dino/nm/ on plagiarism and claim-jumping at the New Mexico Museum of Natural HIstory and Science back in 2010. We didn't hold back, we just carefully documented what had happened. Although the SVP's official conclusions were profoundly disappointing — presumably largely due to the same CYA attitude on the part of ethics committee members — sunlight has nevertheless been an important disinfectant in this case. (And I might note in passing that none of the people involved in documenting this seem to have suffered in their careers).

-- Mike, busy making friends as usual.

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[Jura]

The other side of this is a common problem in all harassment cases (he said, she said). A person who feels slighted and is particularly vindictive can cause trouble for another by either misrepresenting what happened or by outright lying about it. If they "name and shame" a person who doesn't deserve it then even if that person is proven innocent, the damage is done. If one is going to call out an abusive and well-known paleontologist then the evidence better be present and it better be persuasive.

Or to put it in modern parlance:

You come at the King, you best not miss.

[Mike Taylor]

Of course, all of this is true.

But by all accounts in this thread, A LOT of people have witnessed this behaviour. And, again, if we can't make something happen then sure as heck no-one else will.

-- Mike.

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[Bill Parker]

In fact, because this was all called out in 2010 is one of the reasons why SVP did finally adopt a policy. But the case was solid and it wasn't just based on opinions or slighted people feeling 'vindictive' although the defense definitely tried to paint it that way and admittedly at a certain level was successful. 

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[Russell Engelman]

> But the case was solid and it wasn't just based on opinions or slighted people feeling 'vindictive' although the defense definitely tried to paint it that way and admittedly at a certain level was successful. 

To be honest Aetogate was one of a few cases I had in mind when I thought of "why it's not a good idea to speak up", along with a certain thing in Canada. With Aetogate there was a high-profile, big name researcher with lots of friends in high places at SVP who scooped the research of an early-career researcher and more or less get away with it because no one wanted to burn bridges with their friend. To save face, SVP painted the early-career researcher and their allies as "troublemakers" not because they did anything wrong, but because they cried out when they were struck and that made the Society look bad. The reputation of the "plaintiffs" like Mike and Bill didn't take a serious hit, but it could have been much worse. From what I've seen, Aetogate and the thing in Canada seems to have made the younger generation of professionals really lose faith in SVP's ability to handle these kinds of situations.

I've actually talked with people from SVP administration about situations of possible unethical behavior in the past, and was told in both cases while the individuals I was talking to thought the behavior was unethical there was nothing the Society could do. In the absolute best case scenario, the most SVP could do would be to revoke the person's membership, which would do nothing to actually stop the harrassing behavior in question. Which makes sense, to paraphrase a colleague SVP isn't a governing body for paleontologists, it's a "learned gentleman's club" in the sense of Plato's academy or those old Victorian natural history societies, but on a much larger scale. The most they can do is kick you out of the club.

The other issue is a lot of these situations are hearsay or old. You can't really expect anyone to take action over "I saw someone say this 5 years ago". But I've seen from experience with myself and others that even keeping email documentation of individuals doing bad behavior isn't enough.

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[Bill Parker]

I think that in 2007 and 2008 I would have fully agreed with you, but now looking back nearly 18 years (?!!) what we did opened so many doors for so many people and really furthered whole fields of research and student opportunities. Come to find out we didn't need the SVP ExComm to make a ruling anyhow, because as you correctly state, what were they going to do anyway? Mike Taylor and the rest of the group who supported us were the true heroes and many people woke up because of their efforts. 

Regarding the SVP, the unwritten part of "Aetogate" is that after their decision I did personally confront the ExComm (in person) and let them know exactly what I thought they had (or hadn't) done, and the ramifications. We reached an understanding that day that left me with full closure, and I realize now that I left it all behind after that meeting. 

Bill

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[Mike Taylor]

[off-list]

Thanks, Bill, it's really good to read that.

-- Mike.

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