Did you say Evolution doesn't teach man evolved from ape?

Cirbryn said:

I don't know why it doesn't persuade you. It's a case of figuring out what two words (humans and monkeys) mean in a taxonomic sense. When you want to figure out what a word means you look it up. You don't sit there and try to assign it a meaning based on what you think it ought to mean. No one cares what you think it ought to mean.

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Alright then, let's look it up.

Monkey:
Any of several members of the infraorder Simiiformes of primates, generally smaller than the apes, and distinguished from them by having a tail.
--Wiktionary

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So according to this, barbary apes really are apes, even though primatologists insist they're not.

Ape:
MONKEY; especially : one of the larger tailless or short-tailed Old World forms b : any of two families (Pongidae and Hylobatidae) of large tailless semierect primates (as the chimpanzee, gorilla, orangutan, or gibbon) -- called also anthropoid
--Merriam Webster

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And according to this, apes are really monkeys, and anything we call "anthropoid" is really an ape -including monkeys. Maybe we'd better think for ourselves, and figure out what these really are, hmm?

The only difference between looking up any old word and looking up the taxonomic meaning of a word is that when you do the former you use a standard dictionary and when you do the latter you use a standard taxonomic system.

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In which case, (I may as well answer this for you since you never will) you would find that monkeys are defined by starting with all the accumulated characters of Haplorrhini, (dry noses, binocular vision, two pectoral mammae, etc.) and adding the following suite of additional characters;

Larger brain than normal for Haplorhine groups
Male genitalia naked and pendulous, not tethered to abdomen
Lips quite mobile and expressive, not tethered to gums
Trichromatic vision
Having a well-developed caecum
Lacking the ability to synthesize either vitamin D3 or vitamin C

Beyond that, you could indentify Old World monkeys specifically by starting with the general monkey clade and further defining that with these additional characters.

Larger brain than normal for monkeys
Having only two premolars (cuspids & bicuspids)
Downturned nostrils
Tail not prehensile, reduced, vestigial, or absent altogether
Flat fingernails instead of claws, each digit relying instead on sensative pads with uniquely distinctive prints.

There are a few more specifics to each group that I can't remember at the moment. Suffice it to say though that when you try to define Hominoids, you would also have to start with the total collective of Old World monkey characters and add the distinguishing traits. And you would have to define "great" apes the same way but adding traits to the total tally inclusive of all of them and the lesser apes too. This is just one of a few ways we can determine that apes are a subset of monkeys.

The Linnaean system is the current standard taxonomic system.

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Not really, no. It is still popularly embraced, but one could hardly call it “current” anymore.

Cirbryn said:

A lineage of organisms can evolve to a point where the current representatives of the lineage are no longer identified as what their ancestors were.

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No sir. That’s not even possible in any case.

That's what evolution's all about.

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No sir. It is not, not even close. Evolution neither requires nor proposes that anything ever begets another, fundamentally different thing. You’re repeating a common creationist claim. Everything that ever evolved was just a modified version of whatever its ancestors were; each incrimental branch only adds another superficial difference atop previously compiled teirs of fundamental similarities –almost as traceable as tree rings.

When Consideringlily’s example of a primordial mammal emerged, it was still a therapsid synapsid anthracosaurian tetrapod just like its ancestors. When a new form of it emerged at the stem of our family tree, it was still a mammal too.
What kind of mammal? A eutherian, a placental mammal.
What kind of eutherian? A euarchontoglire.
What kind of euarchontoglire? An archontid.
What kind of archontid? A primate.
What kind of primate? A haphorhine.
What kind of haplorhine? A simian anthropoid, a monkey.
What kind of monkey? An Old World monkey, a Catarrhine.
What kind of Old World monkey? A hominoid, an ape.
What kind of ape? A hominid, a ‘great’ ape.
What kind of great ape? A bi-pedal one, a hominine.
What kind of hominine? A human, Homo, a homoine.
What kind of human? Homo sapiens sapiens.

What kind of Homo sapiens? Well, I’m what you might call Caucasian. And even though my ancestors came to America on the Mayflower, I am still Anglo-Nordic and that’s never going to change no matter how tan I am or how I talk. There will never be a point when I, or my descendants can’t be identified as being descended from each of the groups I’ve already listed. I don’t even have to tell you what my ancestry is because all the above can be revealed through examination and genetic testing. And none of this would ever change even if my children become the stem of two new species of man, and even if each one chooses to call themselves by new names. You can further define yourself as much as you like, but you can’t remove those definitions no matter how old they are.

It doesn't mean they lose their ancestry, just that they have changed. For example, when a new species evolves from an old one, it is no longer identified as the old species. To identify it so would imply it freely exchanged genes with the old species, which would mean it wasn't a new species after all.

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Wrong wrong wrong. If dachshunds ever became a new species, they would be a new species of dogs, Canus lupus familiaris dachshund. If long-haired black dachshunds and short-haired red dachshunds both became different species, they would both be new species of dachshunds! Your little Linnaean boxes just don’t work when you remember that evolution is an on-going dynamic that never completely stops.

There is a whole huge dimension to evolution that you’ve not even begun to grasp. I am beginning to think that your impression of it is no better than that of a creationist. I mean, I’ve seen antievolutionists using the same arguments you do, for example, post #24171 to the Panda’s Thumb.

I don't know if apes evolved directly from what would be called monkeys, but I do know they aren't monkeys now.

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You can’t claim to know something if you can’t demonstrate your accuracy to any measurable degree. You refuse to define what a monkey is, and can only rail subjectively over what you want monkeys not to be. So how can I ‘know’ what you claim to ‘know’?

Cirbryn said:

Humans are still mammals because we're classified in the class Mammalia.

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And we’re still monkeys because we’re classified as simians, in the sub-order, Anthropoidea, and as that is our ancestry, then it can't ever change. But beyond the opinions of creationists centuries ago, I know we are monkeys because every generic character, every attribute or flaw common to all of ‘them’ is also present in us. There is not one character all of them possess that we do not. You can’t describe all monkeys in general without describing humans too, and the same thing goes for when you try to describe only the Old World monkeys in particular. We’re still monkeys because we evolved from monkeys, and yes, we have definitely established that in this thread. We’re still monkeys because “monkey” is the Latin translation of one of our parent taxa; because it still applies even to our ancestors who lost their tails; because being an ape means being a particular kind of monkey, because there’s no objective way to determine when a monkey descendant isn’t a monkey anymore, nor is it possible to stop sharing fundamental traits with your parents. Polyphyly is just ridiculous, and paraphyly is of no value at all in classification since you have to identify things by what the are; its impossible to identify anything by what you say it is not; and it isn’t of any taxonomic value to pretend otherwise, because paraphyly doesn’t aid in tracing our orthologue in any way whatsoever. All it does, -and it all it ever did- was to create an inapplicable and deceptive illusion of grades, and an imaginary boundary dividing us from “the animals”, so that we could pretend to compare humans and apes, humans and monkeys, and humans and animals, -even humans and hominids– as if we weren’t part of any of those categories -even when we know for certain that we really are.

Your whole and sole argument –all of it- appears to be that the only time the Linnaean system uses the word, “monkey” (in English) it lists only extant monkey groups, and then only in two different boxes placed next to the box for apes. You have literally no more substance to your argument than this, and you ignore everything beyond that; their evolution from common ancestors, the parapith monkeys, the Latin translations and common synonyms, the character analyses, popular useage, the positions of scientific specialists, the history of flaws and revisions in the 19th century system, the advantagous reasons for the new improvement as described by all those university science citations, and even every practical application of how we may determine for certain just what a monkey is once and for all. You even ignore the fact that your sacred system lists the box for the apes next to the box for humans -rather than one in the other as you try to pretend it is!

My word man! As a field biologist with a Master’s degree, I would have to consider you a scientist. As such, you of all people shouldn’t let your perspectives be confined to little boxes defined only by authority opinion, especially when that is centuries out-dated and can't be rigged to compete against the upgrades anymore. All you’ve done so far in this thread is ignore everything I’ve shown you, and deny you ever saw it, or pretend it didn’t matter. Can you really do no better than this?!

Aron-Ra said:

What kind of Homo sapiens? Well, I’m what you might call Caucasian. And even though my ancestors came to America on the Mayflower, I am still Anglo-Nordic and that’s never going to change no matter how tan I am or how I talk. There will never be a point when I, or my descendants can’t be identified as being descended from each of the groups I’ve already listed. I don’t even have to tell you what my ancestry is because all the above can be revealed through examination and genetic testing. And none of this would ever change even if my children become the stem of two new species of man, and even if each one chooses to call themselves by new names. You can add all further define yourself as much as you like, but you can’t remove those definitions no matter how old they are.

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I never know what to check when there is a question what my race is. My mother and father met during the Vietnam War. Some new forms give you a biracial option but still it is confusing.

Since culture production is characteristic of the Genus Homo. Cultural aspects of race must be valid when you are speaking of Homo sapiens. Although, I don't think that race is as pronounced a difference to be considered like a breed of dogs. Domestic dogs are still not derived enough to be considered a seperate species from wolves.

In my experience my appearance causes people to assume certain things about my ancestry. Like yesterday someone spoke to me in Spanish. In the schoolyard, some children would tease me about looking Asian.

I wonder if their will ever be an American mutt race. There is certainly a great deal of racial mixing here.

Are Americans like me and you ever completely different from our ancestors?

Cirbryn said:

A lineage of organisms can evolve to a point where the current representatives of the lineage are no longer identified as what their ancestors were. That's what evolution's all about. It doesn't mean they lose their ancestry, just that they have changed. For example, when a new species evolves from an old one, it is no longer identified as the old species. To identify it so would imply it freely exchanged genes with the old species, which would mean it wasn't a new species after all.

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consideringlily said:

But in reverse, a species is classified within a larger group because it has shared characteristics with that group. Alll species within a group like Mammalia can be traced to a single common mammalian ancestor. That(of course) is the reason they share characteristics.

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Sure, but what characteristics do we share with that ancestor? Enough to claim we’re still that ancestor? The earliest clear mammals I know of were the species within the family morganucodontidae in the late Triassic. These were egg laying rat-sized insectivores – characteristics they don’t share with us. They also had hair, three middle-ear bones, and mammary glands – characteristics they do share with us and with all other mammals. They also had highly differentiated teeth that worked against each other to shear and grind food – characteristics they share with us and that distinguished them from their diapsid contemporaries, but which they don’t share with cetaceans, armadillos and pangolins. So if you want to pick characteristics common to the entire clade you have to pick carefully. And then you may have to pick again later once some of the descendants have lost one or more of those characteristics. Very few people would claim that we share so many characteristics with the morganucodonts that we are still morganucodonts. We have evolved out of that family, thought not out of the mammalian class that they established. We will always be in the morganucodont clade, however, because the clade is defined to include all the descendants, regardless of shared characteristics.

Cirbryn said:

I don't know if apes evolved directly from what would be called monkeys, but I do know they aren't monkeys now.

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consideringlily said:

The picture of the "Dawn Monkey", that is based on the fossil, certainly looked enough like a monkey for the fossil to be named a monkey. The fossil was certainly not examined and named by laypeople.

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So you’re saying I should take Aron at his word that we evolved from monkeys based on that picture? - despite the fact that a published primatologist disagrees with him and despite the fact that this entire discussion is about me trying to get Aron to stop leaving incorrect impressions through the omission of information? The picture is an artist’s extrapolation based on the fossils found so far, which amount to some teeth, jaw parts, and some foot bones. Take a look at the drawing here from a website maintained by the institution for whom the discoverer of the fossils works. While you’re at it, take a look at the tree they show farther down, and note that eosimias may be on the main branch leading to us or that it may be on a side branch and thus not particularly similar to our actual ancestors of the time. As for the naming, it’s a name intended to evoke the imagination and sell books, and it’s naming the closest thing we currently know of to a common ancestor of monkeys. It’s not like names like that get peer review.

Cirbryn said:

So you’re saying I should take Aron at his word that we evolved from monkeys based on that picture? - despite the fact that a published primatologist disagrees with him

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I know you only trust arguments from authority, but if you rate his arguments rather than his credentials, you'll see they didn't hold up.

and despite the fact that this entire discussion is about me trying to get Aron to stop leaving incorrect impressions through the omission of information?

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Whoa whoa whoa. While you want to omit everything except for one preferred criteria, I have omitted nothing, and I am correcting your false impressions.

it’s a name intended to evoke the imagination and sell books, and it’s naming the closest thing we currently know of to a common ancestor of monkeys. It’s not like names like that get peer review.

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You admit this, and yet you still make fun of my "cnspiracy theories" as if you didn't know what I was talking about?! Amazing!

Cirbryn said:

Sure, but what characteristics do we share with that ancestor? Enough to claim we’re still that ancestor?

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No but the characteristics we do share with that animal are foundational. Like being four-limbed animals that must digest other organisms to survive. There are others, Aron is much more informed than I on homology.

The earliest clear mammals I know of were the species within the family morganucodontidae in the late Triassic. These were egg laying rat-sized insectivores – characteristics they don’t share with us. They also had hair, three middle-ear bones, and mammary glands – characteristics they do share with us and with all other mammals. They also had highly differentiated teeth that worked against each other to shear and grind food – characteristics they share with us and that distinguished them from their diapsid contemporaries, but which they don’t share with cetaceans, armadillos and pangolins. So if you want to pick characteristics common to the entire clade you have to pick carefully. And then you may have to pick again later once some of the descendants have lost one or more of those characteristics.

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Yes throughout generations of divergence, organisms develop adaptions suitable to their ecological niche. They lose some features and gain others. But with less time, divergent characteristics are superficial adaptions built upon the foundational attributes of the most recent common ancestor. This discussion is about monkey to apes divergence. I think you can agree that monkeys and apes and more similar than different.

So you’re saying I should take Aron at his word that we evolved from monkeys based on that picture? - despite the fact that a published primatologist disagrees with him and despite the fact that this entire discussion is about me trying to get Aron to stop leaving incorrect impressions through the omission of information?

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In fairness he hasn't asked you to take his word on the matter. He has provided peer reviewed evidence. You have been responsive to me in my questions. But you have been dismissive of his questions.

The picture is an artist’s extrapolation based on the fossils found so far, which amount to some teeth, jaw parts, and some foot bones. Take a look at the drawing here from a website maintained by the institution for whom the discoverer of the fossils works. While you’re at it, take a look at the tree they show farther down, and note that eosimias may be on the main branch leading to us or that it may be on a side branch and thus not particularly similar to our actual ancestors of the time. As for the naming, it’s a name intended to evoke the imagination and sell books, and it’s naming the closest thing we currently know of to a common ancestor of monkeys. It’s not like names like that get peer review.

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Let me have a good look at this before I comment.

Cirbryn said:

The picture is an artist’s extrapolation based on the fossils found so far, which amount to some teeth, jaw parts, and some foot bones.

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Yes this is true.

Take a look at the drawing here from a website maintained by the institution for whom the discoverer of the fossils works. While you’re at it, take a look at the tree they show farther down, and note that eosimias may be on the main branch leading to us or that it may be on a side branch and thus not particularly similar to our actual ancestors of the time.

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Here is the drawing you were talking about.

The site mentions that the fossil discovery is considered to be an important link between lemur-like animals and "higher" primates like monkeys, apes, and humans. Funny thing is that the Latin name has simias in it or monkey.

Cirbryn said:

If we do disagree we'd be justified in arguing that humans ought not to be classified as mammals, but we would be lying if we told people that humans aren't mammals. Get it? If something is classed as a mammal, it's a mammal until it gets classed as something else.

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consideringlily said:

I don't get it. The Linnean Classification system is a symbolic means to classify nature. Basic language is a set of symbols to signify something else. It has its limitations. Like when you are trying to describe something and you just can't get that perfect contextual meaning.

The relevance is this biological relationships exist independently of the classification system. Even if there never was a human monkey to catalogue that tree, fallimg quietly in the wilderness, the tree would still have biological relationships with other trees.

So no if something is misclassified, it is not what it is classified until further notice. Example there is talk I am sure of sinking birds into the dinosaur clade as avian dinosaurs. Are birds not avian dinosaurs because this isn't fully instituted? Heck no!

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So do you think if you have a disagreement with how something’s classified that you should just tell people it’s classified differently than it really is?

Cirbryn said:

But if you noted that our ancestors all had sail fins on their backs and declared that since we evolved from them we must be pelycosaurs too, you’d get some deservedly funny looks.

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consideringlily said:

The sail fins were charcteristic of their species. No one says that species don't have derived characteristics. The characteristics we still possess from synapsids are ancestral.

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The sail fins were characteristic of several families of species living about 300 to 250 million years ago, one of which was our direct ancestor. Similarly, monkeylike characteristics (such as tails, four-cusped molars, chests that are flatter side to side, etc.) were present in several families of species living about 30 or 40 million years ago, one of which may have been our direct ancestor. If you would say we’re still monkeys, why wouldn’t you say we’re still pelycosaurs?

Cirbryn said:

So do you think if you have a disagreement with how something’s classified that you should just tell people it’s classified differently than it really is?

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No, I don't think anybody said to tell people that they are classifed differently than what its current classification is. However, I would think it would be ethical to note that there is disagreement and cite whatever new studies there are on the subject.

The sail fins were characteristic of several families of species living about 300 to 250 million years ago

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My point was all species have distinguishing characteristics. I wasn't saying that the sail fin is limited to this species.

Similarly, monkeylike characteristics (such as tails, four-cusped molars, chests that are flatter side to side, etc.) were present in several families of species living about 30 or 40 million years ago, one of which may have been our direct ancestor. If you would say we’re still monkeys, why wouldn’t you say we’re still pelycosaurs

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Because biologically there a lot of things that are taken for granted, that are not listed that we share with monkeys. The differences that are cited are overwhelmed by the similarities. Example, lack of a tail. Is a manx cat not a cat because it has no tail?

Am I a kitty?

Cirbryn said:

So do you think if you have a disagreement with how something’s classified that you should just tell people it’s classified differently than it really is?

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Of course not. Instead, you should do as I'm doing; show how it is really classified, and why, and explain how that classification is both misperceived and misrepresented.

consideringlily said:

Am I a kitty?

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Are we?

Are these even mammals? Because Cirbryn said that all mammals had to have hair, and that if they didn't, they wouldn't be mammals anymore. Dolphins don't have any hair at all -none. So I guess they're not mammals then, and neither are these cat-like non-cats.

Dolphins have hair. -- Source

Hairless cats have hair. -- Source

Sleeker said:

Dolphins have hair. -- Source

Hairless cats have hair. -- Source

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OK, so aged Sphynxes have sparse, nearly microscopic hair, and dolphins have only "a few scattered bristles
about the lips" that's only found in the babys. I examined an adult. That explains the oversight.

Still, when the last of these scant few, nearly invisible, not even vestigial follicles are gone, will dolphins still be mammals then? Because I just read that some whales may not even have that much anymore.

Cirbryn said:

The sail fins were characteristic of several families of species living about 300 to 250 million years ago, one of which was our direct ancestor. Similarly, monkeylike characteristics (such as tails, four-cusped molars, chests that are flatter side to side, etc.) were present in several families of species living about 30 or 40 million years ago, one of which may have been our direct ancestor. If you would say we’re still monkeys, why wouldn’t you say we’re still pelycosaurs?

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Because it is not true that all Pelycosaurs had tail fins. So you cant use that character to describe them. And even if they did, -horses, rhinos, and birds are all still anthracosaurs even though none of them have five digits on each limb anymore. Snakes, whales, and amphisbaenians are still tetrapods even though none of them even have the four limbs anymore.

There are two ways to interpret this. For an example of the first, the characters of the "snake" clade start with those of the parent "lizard" clade and then add the loss of limbs, while horses 'add' the character for lost digits. That, I'm sure is the closest thing you would accept since you insist on basing everything on characters. But that's not how taxonomy is done anymore -as the 3rd page of Berkley's "Evolution 101" site illustrates:

As you can see below, the characters are important, but they no longer equate to the the classification. Instead, the total tally of every type of physical characteristic, (morphological, physiological, developmental, or genetic) are used to determine the phylogeny, and that determines the classification!

As we've seen with snakes and horses, etc., the loss of characters can lead to the emergence of a new clade from within the old one. But it doesn't mean snakes stopped being lizards.


This is Haasiophis.terrasanctus, one of a handful of fossil snakes known ot have had legs. It only had two of them, and they were tiny, too small to be used anymore.



But if a snake still has legs, does that mean it's still a lizard in your world? Or does it mean that its not a snake yet, since your system can't permit it to be both?

As Berkley's cladogram shows, neither paraphyly nor polyphyly are even possible . Nor is it at all practical, because establishing evolutionary relationships depends on winding our way back up the limbs of the tree of life, and it doesn't help if the street names keep changing in at every intersection. Once you're on your branch of the synapsid/diapsid divergence, you can't ever go back even if you do sprout another temporal fenestra, because you can't re-write your evolutionary ancestry. That's the only criteria taxonomy cares about anymore. It can't work any other way -except from a creationist's perspective. The Linnaean system is useless if it can't be adapted to phylogenetics, and that means everything has to be monophyletic!

What you see as New World monkeys are a modern monophyletic group. But they're one line, one phylogenetic clade of literal castaways from a parent clade of originally Platyrrhinish monkeys that are known from fossils in the "Old world" of our ancestors. What you now call Parapiths and Propliopiths are the monkeys at the stem of both branches of the our family tree.

Now, if you somehow still doubt that apes evolved from monkeys, and since I know you only care about authority opinion, then let's look to the curator of palaeoanthropology at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History:

"B.2. Anthropoids
The anthropoid primates are divided into New World (South America, Central America, and the Caribbean Islands) and Old World (Africa and Asia) groups. New World monkeys—such as marmosets, capuchins, and spider monkeys—belong to the infraorder of platyrrhine (broad-nosed) anthropoids. Old World monkeys and apes belong to the infraorder of catarrhine (downward-nosed) anthropoids. Since humans and apes together make up the hominoids, humans are also catarrhine anthropoids."
--Richard B. Potts, B.A., Ph.D.

SLP tried to scoff at this reference, but it does explain that 'anthropoid' ("human-like") is used in the same exact context as Carl Linn's Latin word, "Simian", its Russian equivelent, 'обезьяна', (obezyana) and the common dictionary's definition of 'monkey'. 'Anthropoid' (the taxon) really does mean 'monkeys', and apes are anthropoids. Apes really are monkeys by definition. If there's still any doubt about that being scientifically applicable or technically accurate, let's look to Wikipedia, the people who would most like to deny that:

"Proconsul ...had a mixture of Old World monkey and ape characteristics, so their placement in the ape superfamily Hominoidea is tentative; some scientists place Proconsul outside of Hominoidea, before the split of the apes and Old World monkeys. If Proconsul is not an ape, then it would be somewhat closely related to Aegyptopithecus."

Now, you already know how Wikipedia is determined not to admit that apes came from monkeys, but here they did anyway, tripping themselves up with their insistance on using both paraphyly and polyphyly just to deny what they obviously already know.

And another reference from the Smithsonian's Department of Human Origins:

"The ape species Proconsul heseloni lived in dense forests of eastern Africa about 20 million years ago. It was agile in the trees, with a flexible backbone and narrow chest of a monkey, yet capable of wide movement of the hip and thumb as in apes."

OK, so if it had a "monkey" chest, and other "monkey features", but was mostly ape, then at what point would this guy become not a monkey anymore? If Proconsul is only, say, 90% ape, would he only be 10% monkey? Or is it only when he acheives 100% ape-hood that he ascends to some lofty position where he is no longer part of his parent's family?

You can move out of your parent's house, take a new name, and start a new family of your own. But even then, you're still part of your father's family. That cannot change no matter how badly you or he want it to. That's why clades are applicable to real life where Linnaeus' little boxes just have no practical application anymore.

Aron-Ra said:

OK, so aged Sphynxes have sparse, nearly microscopic hair, and dolphins have only "a few scattered bristles
about the lips" that's only found in the babys. I examined an adult. That explains the oversight.

Still, when the last of these scant few, nearly invisible, not even vestigial follicles are gone, will dolphins still be mammals then? Because I just read that some whales may not even have that much anymore.

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Well, adult dolphins retain their hair follicles.

I'm not exactly joining in the argument though. I don't like the current form of classification anyways.

Cirbry said:

If you’re still trying to claim that humans are monkeys according to the accepted standard classification system you’d need to show evidence that humans are a subset of a Linnaean taxon considered by scientists to be equivalent in its entirety to the term “monkeys” (or to a subset of that term, such as “old-world monkeys”). This is exactly equivalent to showing that humans are apes by showing that humans are members of the family Hominidae. It’s quite basic, but so far for all your talking you’ve provided nothing along these lines.

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Aron-Ra said:

Yes I have –again and again and again. I have shown that all members of the family, Hominidae are a subset of Hominoidea, which is a subset of Catarrhini, a collective of “Old World monkeys”.

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You haven’t shown that Catarrhini means “old world monkeys”. You’ve claimed that, and have not been able to back it up. If you disagree then cite the post where you made your case without it having been shot down.

Cirbryn said:

If it had been overturned a decade ago then it wouldn’t be the accepted standard system now would it?

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Aron-Ra said:

That is correct. But once the truth was discovered, how long did it take for everyone to stop teaching that the earth was the center of the universe? The same thing is happening with taxonomy. As I said, virtually all the scientific work is Cladistic these days. The Linnaean tradition is still popularly taught because old traditions are hard to change. But once you get beyond the layman and scholastics levels, taxonomic determinations are no longer just character-based, and the Linnaean groupings are often not even used anymore.

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Now you are defending your misrepresentation of how humans and monkeys are classified by misrepresenting the classification system itself. The Linnaean system isn’t simply character based, and hasn’t been for a long time. It incorporates cladistic data to avoid polyphyly and often does so to avoid paraphyly as well. It differs from purely cladistic systems such as the PhyloCode you cited to earlier (which as you noted is still under development) in that it recognizes some paraphyletic groups. Your apparent assumption that if it’s based on phylogenetic data it can’t be Linnaean is ridiculous.

Cirbryn said:

And if you’re talking about moving non-human great apes from family Pongidae to family Hominidae, that hardly amounts to an overturn of the Linnaean system. “Family” is a Linnaean taxon. If we’re moving things into “families” rather than clades, then we’re using the Linnaean system.

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Aron-Ra said:

The names of some of the clades remain the same. Hominoidea is a cladistic name as well as Linnaean. Simia is Linnaean only and Anthropoidea is typically cladistic. But they both mean the same thing, “monkeys”.

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Please support or withdraw your implied contention that moving the other great apes into the Linnaean family Hominidae constituted some kind of overturn of the Linnaean system. While you’re at it, where have you shown (as opposed to simply asserted) that anthropoidea means “monkeys”?

Cirbryn said:

If you don’t think you’re misrepresenting anything then show how humans are monkeys according to the standard system. Stop throwing up all this off-topic flack.

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Aron=Ra said:

I already did –in all my previous posts. You’re determined to make me repeat myself indefinitely.

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No, believe me, that’s the last thing I want to make you do. But just because you assert a thing doesn’t make it true. Most of your previous posts have been off-topic flack. If there’s something back there I missed regarding support for the idea that humans are monkeys under the standard taxonomic system (and I’ve asked you above for a cite) I’ll certainly take another look. But what I expect I’ll see is you making a claim along those lines and me or SLP countering it.

Cirbryn said:

If it were true that humans are monkeys according to the accepted standard, then you wouldn’t be “challenging” that standard, now would you?

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Aron=Ra said:

Why haven’t you realized this yet? There is not just one "accepted standard"; there are two. The traditional Linnaean character-based system which is static, and the evolving phylogenetic system which is challenging that.

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I haven’t “realized” it because it isn’t true. The closest thing we have to a purely phylogenetic system is the PhyloCode, of which Wikipedia says: “The number of supporters for official adoption of phylocode is still small, and it is uncertain, as of 2005, whether the system will be adopted.” Also, as I discussed above the Linnaean system isn’t static. Additionally, if you are going to agree with me that the Linnaean system is the accepted standard for taxonomic classification, you shouldn’t be coming back weeks later saying “Oh, I meant it was one of two standards. I don’t have time or patience for such games.”

Cirbryn said:

I’m not objecting to your telling people that humans are “обезьяна”. I’m objecting to your telling people that humans are monkeys when the accepted system says they aren’t.

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Aron-Ra said:

But both of the accepted systems say we are. Linnaeaus once classified humans and great apes as Hominids. Non-hominiod monkeys were placed in their own little box which he named after them. Later on, at the insistence of his contemporaries, the other great apes were also added to the “monkey” class, -to keep them separate from humans. But eventually phylogentics put us humans there anyway, in the monkey clade along with the rest of the humanoids. As we’ve already seen in this thread again and again, ‘Anthropoid’ and ‘simian’ both mean “monkey”, because all three words may be used interchangeably. Both ‘Simia’ and ‘обезьяна‘ mean “monkey” quite literally -in the same context that the common laity use that word- in that it includes apes; chimpanzees, gorillas, King Kong –all are monkeys; all of them обезьяны.

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Let me see if I’ve got this straight: you’re claiming that humans are monkeys under the Linnaean system because Linnaeaus classified humans as apes in the 1700s? Or because, according to you but not SLP, we are in a monkey clade (which is a non-Linnaean category).? Or because of the meaning of several words based in other languages that aren’t “monkey” or “human”? Are you actually trying to form a coherent argument here? If “anthropoid” (as used in the Linnaean system) actually meant “monkey” rather than “monkeys and apes”, that might help your case, but I’ve already asked you to back that up. The rest is just silliness.

And while you’re at it, would you kindly find another term for people without much biological background, besides “common laity”? It is at once both insulting and comical that you apparently think of yourself as some kind of special priest.

I don't really have the time, interest, or inclination to re-engage in this thread in any meaningful way, but I am staggered by what sorts of things are considered 'evidence' and at the truly bizarre and unwarranted extrapolations being made here (not to mention the unbridled hubris).

Aron-Ra said:

Aegyptopithecus also was a monkey, and its clade is the stem of both Cercopithecoidea and Hominoidea, -even according to your own sources! Although we've seen some deliberate word-play trying to conceal or deny this, some scientists still contrast New World monkeys with Old World monkeys without the addendum of "and apes and humans".

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Yes, those deceptive scientists, trying to conceal some great truth that Nelson and his cheerleader know to be TRUE TRUE TRUE! (sorry - sometimes I cannot help but be sarcastic).
But I find something odd here - sometimes, Nelson wants to employ pure cladistic concepts, other times, not so much. Take the above, for example. He writes that Aegyptopithecus is the stem of the Ceropithecoidea and Hominoidea, then indicates that this was a monkey and therefore Ceropithecoids and Hominoids are monkeys, too.
Yet in cladistics, there would be no such interdependancies. Aegyptopithecus would simply be considered an extinct sister-group (an outgroup in an analysis of Cercopithecoids and Hominoids, to those that pretend to be conversant with the appropriate terminology and concepts) to the extant Anthropoids. Citing Aegyptopithecus as an ancestor would be the employment of so-called evolutionary taxonomy, which is not the same as cladistics. We could include Aegyptopithecus in a very large clade of Primates. Or, we could exclude it to refer to a clade consisting of only Cercopithecoids and Hominoids, or we could exclude Aegyptopithecus and the Cercopithecoids to refer to the Hominoid clade, or we could exclude the Pongids and Hylobatids to refer to the clade including gorillas, chimps, and humans, or we could exclude chimps and gorillas to refer to the clade containing only Homo and its recent ancestors/sister-groups. It all depends on what you are referring to. That is, it is essentially arbitrary as to which ingroups you want to include.
Evolutionary (phlogenetic) systematics has somewhat differing critera, for it considers ancestor/dependant relationships.
Personally, I don't have a problem with mixing the two. I do have a problem with claiming to be adhering to one while in actuality employing both.

...even according to Eric Delson, another of SLP's preferred authorities. So the word ‘monkey’ can be monophyletic easily!

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Interesting. From the above link which is purported to contain support from Delson for the 'we are monkeys' schtick:

The origin of the anthropoid or higher primates is still under debate in terms of the source group, area, and timing. The tarsier (Tarsius) is probably the living primate sharing the most recent common ancestry with anthropoids, and the tarsierlike
extinct Omomyidae is accepted as a likely ancestral stock...[So, shouldn't we be saying we are tarsiers?]

In this region, three groups of fossil anthropoids have been found. The Parapithecidae (about 35–33 Ma) are monkeylike in adaptation and may be considered a third type of monkey that is not closely related to either living group. They have been suggested as being ancestral to Cercopithecoidea but are specialized in their own ways while lacking the different specializations of the cercopithecoids (or the ateloids; see table)...

The third group of Fayum primates is the Propliopithecidae (34–33 Ma). These species are monkeylike but also in some ways almost apelike; they may well have been close to the common ancestors of cercopithecoid monkeys and hominoids (apes and humans).

Emphases mine. Again, at best, equivocal 'support'.

"Beard's book is the Lucy of anthropoid origins--an adventure story of scientific discovery in exotic places that introduces the reader to some interesting personalities of primate paleontology."
--John G. Fleagle, author of Primate Adaptation and Evolution

I haven't read this myself. But judging by the reviews, it seems that J. G. Fleagle (another one of SLP’s chosen authorities) agrees that monkeys, apes, and ‘ultimately’ humans all descend from what is only described here as a monkey.

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A sentence from a book review is cited as evidence of the author's support for a supposed particular evolutionary hypothesis?

How about this from the book description:

"Taking us back roughly 45 million years into the Eocene, "the dawn of recent life," Chris Beard, a world-renowned expert on the primate fossil record, offers a tantalizing new perspective on our deepest evolutionary roots. In a fast-paced narrative full of vivid stories from the field, he reconstructs our extended family tree, showing that the first anthropoids--the diverse and successful group that includes monkeys, apes, and humans--evolved millions of years earlier than was previously suspected and emerged in Asia rather than Africa. "

I believe SLP stated that this fact alone would be sufficient to prove him wrong.

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You believe incorrectly, but your obsession with 'proving' me wrong is quite flattering. I don't consider myself the ultimate authority on such matters - I was blessed (cursed?) with a streak of humility - so I rely on those whose professional histories include a track record of peer reviewed publications on the relevant subjects to provide frameworks within which I can draw conclusions. Such professionals have indicated that, at best, the issue is unresolved. So, I prefer functional, relevant taxonomies rather than ego-driven fantasies premised on preferred evolutionary histories and a haphazard use of terminology.
But that is just me.

You have failed to provide any means of separating men from monkeys, certainly not in terms of either their collective kin or their derived traits, nothing to reveal when a monkey descendant isn’t a monkey anymore, (or how that can be confirmed) and nothing to indicate that we are not just a bigger, smarter version of the same thing the rest of them are.

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You have failed to provide any means of separating primates from mammals....nothing to reveal when a sarcopterygian descendant isn’t a sarcopterygian anymore...
See how that can work?

You may have been conditioned to think that describing humans as highly-specialized monkeys is absurd. But the fact remains that there is not one character shared by all of them that isn’t also shared by us. You certainly couldn’t produce any, nor will you ever be able to.

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Wow. Such certainty...
I am curious - are there any characters that are shared by all Primates that are not possessed by monkeys?
Any characters shared by all mammals that are not possessed by Primates?
Surely there must be some, lest we should simply say we are Mammals or we are all Primates.
My sticking point in this 'discussion' is, and I stand by this characterization, the arbitrary (I *know* what it means. I *knew* what it means) nature of choosing 'monkey' as the stem from which to classify all extant Anthropoids as. Are there any characters shared by chimps, humans and gorillas that 'monkeys' do not possess? If so, why not use that clade/stem as the one from which to draw our 'name'?

For example, you couldn’t say that cars have four wheels or that they run on internal combustion engines, because there are several examples of ground-driven passenger transport vehicles which are universally-accepted as “cars” but which don’t meet either or both of those criteria.

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So how would YOU classify ground-driven passenger transport vehicles that do not have 4 wheels or run on internal combustion engines?

Would you employ a more general name that includes all such creatures? Or would you provide a separate classification for 4-wheeled vehicles, one for 3-wheeled vehicles, etc.?

Despite all your weird allegations about polyphyly, and all your evasion of this simple truth, one can't change their ancestry no matter how much thier descendants may change, and one cannot switch from one lineage to another. Its impossible for any living thing to do so ever, and yet Linnaean taxonomy requires it in every case at every imagined “grade”!

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It is then interesting to note that at one of your 'supporting' links, it refers to 'monkey' as a grade...

Monkey
An adaptive or evolutionary grade among the primates, represented by members of two of the three modern anthropoid superfamilies.

Since life is an evolving process, then you have to determine the evolutionary relationship indicated by the characters (or loss of them) in whatever organism you examine. I think I have already shown that you can’t do that with monkeys without describing humans and all other apes at the same time. If you try to be more precise, and only describe Old World monkeys specifically, you will describe humans and all other apes then too.

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And thus you would not be restricted to claiming 'humans are monkeys.' For example, all Cercopithecines possess bilophodont molars, whereas Hominoids do not, a character that would necessitate claiming that 'Humans are apes'. Earlier in this thread, Aron had mentioned something about characters possessed by all members of a group (via descent) but not possessed by others as a defining characteristic of a monophyletic group. It was and has been claimed that there are characters that all monkeys, apes and humans possess and therefore, humans are monkeys because the 'ancestor' of all of them possessed these characters. But this is not evident, as indicated by a few of the quotes I provided (interestingly, from links Aron provided) containing terms like "monkey-like" and "ape-like". However, by that criterion, I have met the 'challenge' to present a character that apes and humans possess ( a unique cusp pattern on the molars) that Old World monkeys do not have.

If you still think I’m misrepresenting evolution, or creating some parody of it detrimental to its image, fear not.

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I cannot speak for Cirbryn, but I do not think you are misrepresenting anything. I do think, however, that you are giving your personal opinions on these issues more weight than they deserve. The evidence you have presented, contrary to various protestations, is at best equivocal, and some of the links you provided even presented items that are contradictory to some of your claims. Being 'right' about everything, it seems to me, is less important than trying to promote good science. What taxa, extinct or extant, are referred to as is far less important, in my view, than providing the evidence that descent occurred.

And remember this, you can’t say you didn’t come from apes if you’re still an ape right now, and you can’t say you didn’t come from monkeys if every ancestor you ever knew is still a monkey right now.

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One can say they 'came from' creatures that, were they still alive, would probably be classified as monkeys or prosimians or the like. But one can just as cladistically correctly claim that we 'came from' or 'are' apes. It is a matter of perspective and, frankly, preference. Further, cladistically speaking, an ancestor is no longer alive (one of the several common criticisms of cladistics).

And as more and more “acknowledged leaders” in the analysis of the human fossil record adopt the cladistic perspective, and the reality of your monkeydom becomes more widely-accepted, this concept will seem less and less ridiculous to you.

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Please tell me you are not actually using the title of a book to indicate Tattersall's acceptance of the "humans are monkeys" position... He may well do so, but the title of a book is hardly 'evidence'.

Would you use this as a citation in a manuscript?


This has all been enlightening, but I really have nothing to add to this discussion anymore. The tentativeness of true science cannot compete with the certainty of the overconfident.

Ok, maybe just one more...

Aron-Ra said:

Everything that ever evolved was just a modified version of whatever its ancestors were; each incrimental branch only adds another superficial difference atop previously compiled teirs of fundamental similarities –almost as traceable as tree rings.

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And so therefore humans are monkeys and nothing else, so there! Not apes, not nothin'...

What kind of euarchontoglire? An archontid.

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1. So humans are archontids.

What kind of archontid? A primate.

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2. So humans are primates.

What kind of primate? A haphorhine.

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3. So humans are haplorhines.

What kind of haplorhine? A simian anthropoid, a monkey.

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4. So humans are anthropoids. Err.. monkeys.

What kind of monkey? An Old World monkey, a Catarrhine.

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5. So humans are catarrhines.

What kind of Old World monkey? A hominoid, an ape.

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6. So humans are apes.

What kind of ape? A hominid, a ‘great’ ape.

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7. So humans are great apes.

What kind of great ape? A bi-pedal one, a hominine.

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8.So humans are hominines.

What kind of hominine? A human, Homo, a homoine.

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9. So humans are homoines.

What kind of human? .

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10. So humans are Homo sapiens sapiens.
So, somewhere in there there must be a logical reason to stop appending nomenclature at step 4, but I'm not seeing it. I know, I know, look at all the links in this thread blah blah blah. And I say which ones? All of the ones I have visited have provided, as I have indicated and even documented, at best, equivocal support.

There will never be a point when I, or my descendants can’t be identified as being descended from each of the groups I’ve already listed.

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Indeed, so why the arbitrary choice of nomenclature?

You can’t claim to know something if you can’t demonstrate your accuracy to any measurable degree.

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Interesting - I recall Harshman saying something like that...

And we’re still monkeys because we’re classified as simians, in the sub-order, Anthropoidea, and as that is our ancestry, then it can't ever change.

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And so we are still Archontans, Primates, apes, etc., too. Why pick one over the others?

...I know we are monkeys because every generic character, every attribute or flaw common to all of ‘them’ is also present in us. There is not one character all of them possess that we do not.

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Same for Primates. Same for Archontans. Etc...

We’re still monkeys because we evolved from monkeys, and yes, we have definitely established that in this thread.

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I disagree. Your supporting links have even supplied contradictory information, such as describing presumed ancestors as 'apelike' or indicating that a tarsiiform was most likely ancestral.

We’re still monkeys because “monkey” is the Latin translation of one of our parent taxa

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So, Simon Bar Sinister on the Underdog cartoon really was a b*#tard because that is the how Bar Sinister literally translates? Come on....

My word man! As a field biologist with a Master’s degree, I would have to consider you a scientist. As such, you of all people shouldn’t let your perspectives be confined to little boxes defined only by authority opinion, especially when that is centuries out-dated and can't be rigged to compete against the upgrades anymore. All you’ve done so far in this thread is ignore everything I’ve shown you, and deny you ever saw it, or pretend it didn’t matter. Can you really do no better than this?!

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Nice... Seems you engaged in similar denigration of Harshman, also. Yet you were arguing the opposite side of ther coin then.
Some things change, some things don't.

Reading back through the thread...

consideringlily said:

It's been brought up several times by you and SLP.

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Um, I do not recall once referring to anyone's appearance. If you can find where I had done so, I will gladly retract it and admit my faux pas.

What do you guys look like? No one has mentioned it because it isn't relevant.

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Well, an old friend once said I look like Robert Michum, hopefully when he was young. I don't know if that is a compliment or not. In the '80's, I went to a concert featuring Billy Idol and Duran Duran (I didn't like either, but a friend gave me a ticket if I would drive), and several young ladies followed me around, saying I look like Simon LeBon.
Not sure if that is a compliment, either.

Edx said:

As someone that doesnt know much about this subject, I cant help but notice how Cirbryn and SLP ignore the really important points that the entire discussion seems to hinge upon just like Ive seen Creationists do.

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Well, Ed, I am clearly a creationist then.

But isn't it odd that someone that admits to not knowing much about the subject nonetheless deems himself able to judge what the 'really important points' are? Tell me, Edx, what ARE these 'really inmportant points' that, darn it all, I just can't seem to get a handle on?

Interestingly, from where I sit, I notice quite the opposite...