biology

Mark Siddall

Mark Siddall is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Mark Siddall rather than just read about it. In short: Mark E. Siddall is a Canadian biologist and former curator at the American Museum of Natural History.

Key takeaways

Mark Siddall belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Mark Siddall to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Mark Siddall from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Mark E. Siddall is a Canadian biologist and former curator at the American Museum of Natural History. Siddall has studied the evolution and systematics of blood parasites and leeches, and systematic theory. Siddall was hired as an assistant curator at the American Museum of Natural History in July, 1999 and worked there as a curator until September, 2020, when he was terminated for allegedly having violated the museum's policy prohibiting sexual relationships between staff and mentees. Siddall denied the claim.

Education Siddall completed a Masters and PhD under the supervision of Sherwin S. Desser at the University of Toronto in 1991 and 1994, respectively.

Career After completing his PhD, Siddall completed a postdoc at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. Subsequently, he was a fellow in the Michigan Society of Fellows from 1996-1999. He also acted as treasurer of the Willi Hennig Society, publisher of the journal Cladistics. Siddall has worked and published on parasitic and other animals, including leeches, jellyfish, guinea worms, and bed bugs. He is author of the science book Poison: Sinister Species with Deadly Consequences. In 2016, Siddall, Jonathan Eisen, and others were involved in the Twitter controversy #ParsimonyGate. The American Museum of Natural History fired Siddall in September 2020 for alleged sexual harassment, citing museum policy that prohibits sexual relationships between staff and mentees under their academic supervision. An outside law firm representing the museum's interests found that Siddall had "engaged in verbal, written, and physical conduct of a sexual nature that had the effect of unreasonably interfering with your academic performance." Siddall denied that any sexual encounter ever took place, and claimed he was fired because "he had found a serious error" in a paper.

Research Siddall studies phylogenetics and evolution. Siddall has been described as "a staunch supporter of parsimony and a harsh critic of maximum likelihood approaches”, although "having mellowed a bit on that".

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Mark Siddall

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Mark Siddall claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Mark Siddall before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Mark Siddall ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Mark Siddall

In research: Mark Siddall appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Mark Siddall in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Mark Siddall is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 20th-century Canadian biologists, 21st-century Canadian biologists, Canadian evolutionary biologists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Mark Siddall outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Mark Siddall in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Mark Siddall means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Mark Siddall out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Mark Siddall in simple terms?

Mark E. Siddall is a Canadian biologist and former curator at the American Museum of Natural History.

Why does Mark Siddall matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Mark Siddall?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Mark Siddall.