Actual science

One thing that bothers me is that so far, my project seems to be about database and website design and coding, not science. However, the science comes later: adding items to the DB is at least related to scientific methods, and once the DB is full enough, I'll be able to use it to figure out what new methods need to be created to answer questions (the real goal of the project). I'm also still doing science, despite the impression blog readers might get: this week, I have done a series of likelihood bootstraps on my ant data (I had to move a couple of intron boundaries based on info from genbank, which then required a new partitioned analysis), started doing the power/bias tests for new methods of trait evolution I've developed, worked on analyses for a paper on fish evolution with Dave Collar using new methods in my program Brownie, talked to a student about models of gene evolution [see my published authored appendix on this], and twiddled my thumbs waiting for reviews on a species delimitation paper (>9 weeks in review so far [but at least it's in review]).