Hilary on Burton

Hilary Ostrov posted this in the comments to the Burton Richter thread. Worthy of a header post IMHO.

There once was a laureate named Richter
Who issued an obiter dicta:
That I am be-medalled
Means the science is settled
I can tell by one glance at the picture

Comments

[Rick Bradford]

Wonderful!

Perhaps to be followed by a Josh rendition of the good Laureate's strawman conveyor belt, where you can have every color except green.

[Hilary Ostrov]

Thank you, Your Grace ... And if I might be permitted an "encore" (to highlight an equally significant revelation from CG2) ...

There once was a scientist named Phil
Whose opinions of skeptics were shrill
To bring his cause to fruition
He would use intuition
And into data or code never drill.

Phil Jones keep peer review process humming ... by using "intuition"

[ScientistForTruth]

That's a hoot!

Pity about the Latin, though. 'Obiter dicta' is neuter plural: one must have an 'obiter dictum' if singular, though in fact Richter had several obiter dicta, so for pedants like me, Hilary, the second line would be improved as 'Who issued his obiter dicta', and it still rhymes.

[Hilary Ostrov]

SFT ... You're absolutely right!

It's been too many years, and my rusty Latin, I'm afraid, is, well, worse than I thought! But to give myself credit, I had actually first typed "obiter dicter" ... and I knew that was very wrong ;-)

P.S. Sorry about the typo in my "encore" ... Linked text should read : Phil Jones keeps ...

[Paul Matthews]

An activist scientist "Peter"
is not much good as a tweeter.
With his dubious claims
and calling of names
he just comes across as a bleater.

[dearieme]

"Huhne" wasn't his surname when he was a schoolboy, apparently. Then he was called Twat-Huhne.