# Comments on Venema's VTG Figure

**URL:** <https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/comments-on-venemas-vtg-figure/7090>\
**Category:** Side Conversation\
**Tags:** Comments\
**Created:** [August 2, 2019, 4:11pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/comments-on-venemas-vtg-figure/7090 "2019-08-02T16:11:56Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![swamidass](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/swamidass/32/3_2.png) [@swamidass](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/swamidass)\
**Post date:** [August 2, 2019, 4:11pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/comments-on-venemas-vtg-figure/7090/1 "2019-08-02T16:11:56Z")

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Continuing the discussion from [Venema's VTG Figure](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/venemas-vtg-figure/7089/7):

> [@On another topic](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/7089/1):
>
> ## The Questions
> 
> This figure by Venema is misleading. So, here are the questions that have come up at times about this figure:
> 
> 1. How consequential was this miss-representation of the data?
> 2. Should it be corrected somehow? How could it bee more accurately represented (e.g. with a caption that states “not drawn to scale.”)?
> 3. Why should Venema get a pass on this? If Venema gets a pass, are others (e.g. Tomkins) being held to higher standards?
> 4. What is the process among mainstream science advocates to identify and correct our own errors?
> 
> What are the scholars thoughts on this?

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**Author:** ![davecarlson](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/davecarlson/32/2139_2.png) [@davecarlson](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/davecarlson)\
**Post date:** [August 2, 2019, 4:01pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/comments-on-venemas-vtg-figure/7090/2 "2019-08-02T16:01:04Z")

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> [@On another topic](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/7089/5):
>
> The figure was from Venema’s post, not from the paper.

Thanks. The way you worded it in your OP made it sound like Venema wrote the paper and that the figure in question came from the paper itself, not a blog post.

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**Author:** ![swamidass](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/swamidass/32/3_2.png) [@swamidass](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/swamidass)\
**Post date:** [August 2, 2019, 4:02pm UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/comments-on-venemas-vtg-figure/7090/3 "2019-08-02T16:02:15Z")

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> [@On another topic](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/7089/7):
>
> > The figure was from Venema’s post, not from the paper.
> 
> Thanks. The way you worded it in your OP made it sound like Venema wrote the paper and that the figure in question came from the paper itself, not a blog post.

Made an edit:

> [@On another topic](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/7089/1):
>
> Both @evograd’s and Tomkin’s article reference Dennis Venema’s 2012 blog article, where the VTG synteny was first published in the origins space (Venema was referencing another article: [Loss of Egg Yolk Genes in Mammals and the Origin of Lactation and Placentation](https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.0060063)).

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**Author:** ![John\_Harshman](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/john_harshman/32/1121_2.png) [@John\_Harshman](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/John_Harshman)\
**Post date:** [August 3, 2019, 12:54am UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/comments-on-venemas-vtg-figure/7090/4 "2019-08-03T00:54:30Z")

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My thought is that it should be obvious to anyone looking at that figure that it was not intended as accurate to exact scale (note that there is no scale in the figure), and that it would be insulting to the reader’s intelligence to add a note to that effect.