Talk:Douglas Lake Member

Merge proposal
This page is mostly edited by Gregory Retallack, and he created articles of genera from this site, Cestites, Casterlorum, Janegraya, Dollyphyton and Edwardsiphyton. Other than Cestites, these genera are described by Retallack himself. Retallack is, although great paleobotanical researcher, also known from fringe theory such as interpreting Ediacaran biota as terrestrial lichen. These genera are what he claimed in 2019 as "Ordovician plant fossils". If this were true, several studies would have highlighted this as important, such as phylogenic analysis of moss, even though it was published in 2019. However, if you look it up on Google Scholar, you'll see that this paper has actually only been cited in 12 articles so far, three of which are Retallack himself. As I write in this page, 2022 study questioned its affinity as plant fossils, and 2023 study agreed to this. When I added this 2023 paper to this page, Retallack edited to "The interpretation of these fossil have been considered controversial by palynologists but accepted by a botanist" and added this reference as from botanist. This is review of Retallack's book by Egbert Leigh, which also includes about Ediacaran lichen theory, but keep in mind Leigh is not researcher of Paleozoic plants, he is more like modern and Cenozoic evolution researcher instead (and infamous for sexual harassment). Then I noticed 2023 paper I cited is originally from 2022 paper, which is done by Dianne Edwards who is paleobotanist, better at researching Paleozoic plants than Leigh. In other words, Retallack's edits were clearly done arbitrarily to favor his own research. Seeing how he misinterpreted beehive to Dickinsonia, is there really a need for separate articles for these genera? The contents of the pages for these genera are roughly the same, and they only include photos of fossils in favor of recognition as plants. If anything, I feel it would be more convenient to compile a simple interpretation of these fossils on this page. This research is certainly interesting, but unfortunately I feel that it has not been studied enough to merit attention. (Just for fair, he supported affinity of Cestites as liverwort at 2001, there is still single research used Retallack's one for bryophyte age) Ta-tea-two-te-to (talk) 13:55, 9 November 2023 (UTC)


 * Support per nom. Happy editing, SilverTiger12 (talk) 16:36, 10 November 2023 (UTC)