Thread by @StuartVNielsen

Hey #jmih19 There were some rumors going around that @David_Hillis either vandalized or bullied a "student" into changing some taxonomy on their poster. Short story-that person was me (not a student!) and he most certainly did not bully me, as evidenced by the attached photo!

In the program, my original title was Rana, whereas it was Lithobates in my abstract, so I changed it to the latter for consistency. Dave and I had a short academic conversation about why I had changed it, after which I thought it would be funny to 'vandalize' my own poster.

We both chuckled over it, and Dave went on his way. As other folks came and looked at the changes, I would related the story, and it eventually shortened to "Dave Hillis made me change it, hahaha!" What can I say, I'm an attention whore. Unfortunately that fed into an existing...

...narrative that I didn't fully know about. I just thought it was funny that people were so riled up about this taxonomic change, and I was having a good time at a poster session. Later some other senior herpetologists came to see the change and asked whether it was true,...

..whether Dave Hillis had indeed vandalized my poster - or bullied me in some way to do it. To my shame, I didn't nip this tale in the bud right then. I again intimated "Dave made me do it ha haha" although I was clear to say Dave never actually touched my poster.

"But" I said, "if you disagree with him, here's the Sharpie!" One of these senior herpos happily took it and scratched out Rana and included a bit of a pointed opinion re: the change. They left, later other folks came by, and more changes were made. "All in good fun" I thought.

The next day to my surprise, I was informed that my poster had been discussed at length at a late night party, and again that I had been bullied into changing it. "Horse shit!" I thought, nobody would believe that. You can imagine my surprise when on Monday I got an email...

...forwarded to me from the safety officer (but not addressed to me, to my irritation) saying there had been some complaints lodged against Hillis for bullying me. Again, this is categorically untrue, and I am incredibly sorry that my poor attempt at comedy was miscontrued...

...and made to serve some other narrative that doesn't involve me at all. Every interaction I've had with Dave has been cordial and innocuous. I wish to apologize to him and hope this series of tweets clears him of any wrongdoing against me. I am disappointed in how this was...

...handled, but realize I am not without fault. I was really hoping this conference would be without controversy. Little did I know that I would be the jackass responsible for one.

@ASIHCopeia @ssarherps @HerpLeague