Concerning Professor Hest’s Review

Professor Hest is entirely correct that I failed to record the storage temperature of the Elven cartilage discussed in Elven Senescence: A Quantitative Reassessment. The omission prevents a reliable comparison of its elasticity with that of freshly obtained material; I withdraw that comparison without qualification. The measurements were mine, and responsibility for their inadequate documentation cannot conveniently be assigned to an assistant.

His remaining objections require a preliminary correction to his bibliography: the table he finds incomplete, the passage he calls evasive and the conclusion he demands that I reconsider all belong to the second edition. The third edition’s table includes the coastal populations whose absence he deplores, and an account of the sampling difficulties has replaced the passage he disliked. The conclusion itself is withdrawn there in so many words. His review even reproduces the second edition’s misprinted figure for the oldest subject. This is unusually persuasive evidence of which volume he consulted, although it contributes little to Elven physiology.

I have asked Bellweather and Sorn to send him the current text. I should welcome his measurements once he supplies independently established ages for his subjects, and until then his proposed revision cannot be assessed. A professor who charges an author with neglecting evidence ought at least to examine the book under review. Hest’s objections may yet improve my work, provided he first allows its existing improvements to reach him.