Hi Toni. Evograd here.
I would hope that Joel and Josh refer to my blog posts because they agree with the points I make (or in some contexts, at least consider them worth discussing), not because they unthinkingly rely on my expertise. You’re just attacking me as a source, implying I’m not capable of making valid criticisms of Jeanson’s work.
I said I’m not an expert in the specific fields discussed - I’m not a phylogeneticist or molecular geneticist, but I am more broadly speaking an evolutionary biologist. My specialism is just different. I will note that Jeanson’s expertise, such as it is, is related to hematopoietic stem cells, so is broadly summarised as cell and developmental biology. He has no formal training in evolutionary genetics or phylogenetics beyond perhaps an undergraduate class or two. I can say without hesitation that in these terms, I have more qualifications in these areas than Jeanson, despite not having yet completed my PhD.
If you think any of the points I made are incorrect, I’m willing to discuss them, but please don’t dismiss everything I worked on simply because you don’t think I’m qualified to disagree.