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

[Loudmouth]

You seem to be arguing that cladistics is a really swell system; so all life-form classifications ought to be cladistic; so all such classifications are in fact cladistic; so “monkey” is cladistic; so when I say “humans aren’t monkeys” I actually mean “the human clade isn’t part of the monkey clade”; so I’m wrong because the human clade really is part of the monkey clade. Does that sound like a fair summary to you? If not, please explain how your argument differs.

Not to speak for Aron, but the human clade and the monkey clade (ignoring proper naming for now) are nested within the same clade. The ultimate question delved into the evolutionary relationship between monkeys and humans. Simply stating that humans and monkeys are in separate clades does not address this question.

The fact of the matter is that monkeys and humans are both primates, were always primates, and will always be primates no matter what changes occur in the future. If the primate lineage is successful for the next billion years then the primate lineage could be considered a new phylum.

We could define monkeys as possessing a particular characteristic, and a lineage of monkeys could beget eventual descendants that didn’t have that characteristic.

And we could consider primates as the characteristics shared by humans (and all other apes in the hominidae clade) and monkeys as defining the primate clade.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a non-Creationist use the “but it’s still a dog” argument.

Then you haven't been around these debates very long. It's a common argument.

The point is that after evolving enough it wouldn’t still be a dog, unless you defined “dog” to include everything that evolves from dogs no matter what they look like.

Isn't that exactly what has happened? If you knew nothing of dog breeds would you put chihuahuas and great danes in the same species, or even in the same genus? 10,000 years ago there were wolves. Look at the changes that has occurred in that lineage, and yet they are still called dogs, or at least canids. Look at the diversification that has occurred in the mammal lineage, and yet they all remain mammals.

So yes, everything that evolves from present day canids will always be canids, no matter what changes occur.

Most people don’t define dogs that way. And you weren’t talking about dogs or mice or fruit flies, anyway. You were talking (in post 89) about species and how they form. “Species” is a Linnaean taxon. If two populations of the same species evolve so they are no longer the same species, then one or both has evolved out of its taxon. Since we agree this is possible for at least one taxon, I’m asking why you don’t think it’s possible for other taxa.

Species is the only taxon that naturally occurs. All other taxon are the product of taxonomists, not nature.

Creationists often argue that evolution requires “fundamental differences” (whatever that means) to evolve in a generation or two, such as the dog that gives birth to a cat. The fact that evolution doesn’t generally produce such “fundamental differences” so quickly doesn’t mean it doesn’t produce them at all. Our ancestors in the Devonian breathed through gills; we breathe through lungs. I’d call that a fundamental difference.

No one is proposing that the switch from gill to lung occurred in a generation or two. Most agree that functional gills and lungs (eg lungfish) is a viable intermediate, and such functions evolved slowly and incrementally.

We are neither Stegocephalians (an order of amphibians) nor Osteichthyans (a class of fish, now redefined as Actinopterygii).

Stegocehpalians, Osteoicthyans, and Hominidae are all Vertebratas and will always be within Vertebrata.

 

[Aron-Ra]

Then I have no idea what you were talking about in your first paragraph of post 89. I had said your argument depends on whether you can show that descendants are incapable of evolving to become other than the Linnaean taxa of their ancestors. You responded in post 89 “I thought this thread was about whether evolution taught that humans had evolved from apes, and that you wanted to argue whether humans are monkeys.” That looks like a complete non-sequitur to me unless you were trying to argue that “monkey” isn’t a Linnaean term.

It wouldn't matter if it was a Linnaean term or not. When common folk criticize evolution for teaching that "men came from monkeys", they're not even thinking about Linnaean taxonomy. But we still have to decide whether that statement is accurate. And to do that, we have to understand what a monkey is.

You seem to be arguing that cladistics is a really swell system; so all life-form classifications ought to be cladistic; so all such classifications are in fact cladistic; so “monkey” is cladistic; so when I say “humans aren’t monkeys” I actually mean “the human clade isn’t part of the monkey clade”; so I’m wrong because the human clade really is part of the monkey clade. Does that sound like a fair summary to you? If not, please explain how your argument differs.

Its funny to me that just three years ago, I was on your side about most of this, and now, here I am arguing against my old position. But as I said, I was proven wrong. From what I've been able to determine, the most scientific, and best possible definition for the common layman understanding of 'monkey' is as follows;

"Any anthropoid primate -exclusive of Hominoidea- and expressed as a grade between the two; specifically, all Platyrrhines and both Propliopithecoidea and Cercopithecoidea among Catarrhines especially where either may be treated as a non-phyletic (or paraphyletic) derived character-based description as opposed to a cladistic taxon."

It either means that, or it simply means 'anthropoid'. The definition is simple until you try to remove humans and other apes from that category. And I think, "anthropoid primates -exclusive of Hominioidea" is another way of saying "all of them -except us", -which of course is an admission that we are in fact one of them, and just don't want to admit it.

Most people wouldn't understand this long, complicated definition. None the less, that seems to be their understanding of what a monkey is. And the ancestors of apes were animals that everyone in the world -except non-cladistic primatologists- would recognize as monkeys.

The word, 'monkey' has no scientific definition -unless it is synonemous with 'anthropoid'. And as I said before, the complete character analysis describing all monkeys consistently -still describes humans and other apes as well. The definition of monkey, therefore, is inclusive of hominoids and cannot exclude them.

We could define monkeys as possessing a particular characteristic, and a lineage of monkeys could beget eventual descendants that didn’t have that characteristic.

That is the weakness of the Linnaean system. Let me give you my favorite example of that -posted by a Christian creationist named Taichi.

"The octopus has a beak, so that makes him a bird.
He has eight legs, so that makes him a spider.
He has no bones, so that makes him a jelly fish.
He has suction cups So that makes him a squid.
He squirts black ink so that makes him a fountain pen.
All in all, that makes him a nightmare for biologists and evolutionists."
--alt.talk.creationism, July 23rd, 2000

In systematic classification, its not just one characteristic but all of them collectively. And it isn't the characters which define the class. Every morphological, physiological, genetic, or developmental character trait combines to determine phylogeny -and that determines the clade! So we could define monkeys as possessing a collection of particular characteristics, and a lineage of monkeys could beget eventual descendants that adhere to that -plus whatever modification specifies only that descendant group. And that modification can include a loss or reduction of a particular character.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a non-Creationist use the “but it’s still a dog” argument.

Get used to it.

The point is that after evolving enough it wouldn’t still be a dog, unless you defined “dog” to include everything that evolves from dogs no matter what they look like. Most people don’t define dogs that way.

Then accept the challenge I already made for you. Explain to me how a lineage of dogs could beget descendants who aren't dogs anymore. Let's say that somehow humans went abruptly extinct, and our dogs were left to their own devices. Several breeds in different environments wouldn't interbreed, so you might end up with suburban Dachshunds occupying a niche once held by badgers (for example). How would it be possible for any cocktail of characters to ever accumulate such that eventual dachshund descendants wouldn't be dogs anymore?

And you weren’t talking about dogs or mice or fruit flies, anyway. You were talking (in post 89) about species and how they form. “Species” is a Linnaean taxon. If two populations of the same species evolve so they are no longer the same species, then one or both has evolved out of its taxon. Since we agree this is possible for at least one taxon, I’m asking why you don’t think it’s possible for other taxa.

We don't agree on that. I don't know why you thought we did. If a humanless environment were to rid the world of Pekenese and Shi-tzus and all that, along with any intermediate dog breeds, -in favor of a half dozen specialized mutt-types, each individually successful in their own niche, then shepherd-hounds in the forests, fox-like collie-terriers in the deserts, cattle-hunting rotweiler-mastif types, or Dachshunds living like badgers might all become distinct species. Yet none of them would have evolved "out of" any taxon. Its not even possible to do that.

The failure of the current system is the assumption that, if modern men and Neanderthals both evolved from Homo erectus, then they're not erectines anymore. But in the cladist approach, they're both still human; There's a lot of conceptual restructuring going on in anthropology, such that Homo erectus is now considered by some to simply be a primitive Homo sapiens, and that the spawn of that species is Homo sapiens sapiens and Homo sapiens neanderthalensis. Each new species would be another name added on to define them further. Similarly, in our analogy post-apocolyptic dogs, Canus lupus familiaris rot and Canus lupus familiaris dachshund would be different species forever contained wthin the same taxon they belonged to before.

Creationists often argue that evolution requires “fundamental differences” (whatever that means) to evolve in a generation or two, such as the dog that gives birth to a cat. The fact that evolution doesn’t generally produce such “fundamental differences” so quickly doesn’t mean it doesn’t produce them at all. Our ancestors in the Devonian breathed through gills; we breathe through lungs. I’d call that a fundamental difference.

I wouldn't, especially since so many of our ancestors who had gills also had lungs at the same time, and for a long long time too. That, and the fundamentals between us never changed. We are still advanced, bilateral opisthokont animals with three germ layers and spinal chords, etc. However we've changed since the days of gills, those fundamentals remain the same.

We are neither Stegocephalians (an order of amphibians)

No sir. Stegocephalians precede amphibians by a long way. This is a stegocephalian.

A stegocephalian is a Sarcopterygiian lineage which also possessed digits. Amphibians (however you define them) are still a few clades down from this form.

nor Osteichthyans (a class of fish, now redefined as Actinopterygii).

Wrong again. Look it up.

"Class Osteichthyes are the bony fish, a group paraphyletic to the land vertebrates, which are sometimes included. Most belong to the Actinopterygii. The others are called lobe-finned fish, and include lungfish and coelacanths. They are traditionally treated as a class of vertebrates, with subclasses Actinopterygii and Sarcopterygii, but newer schemes may divide them into several separate classes. The vast majority of fish are bony fish, and therefore belong to class Osteichthyes."
--TheFreeDictionary

We were never Actinopterygii -even though some of our ancestors did have rayed fins once upon a time. That classification isn't based on that one character despite its description. Its total collective characters define a phylogeny which took another path after our lineage had already diverged. But we are sarcopterygii and Osteichthyes because our ancestors had digits and calcified bones and all the other criteria of those two clades. Don't forget taxonomy is my chosen field.

 

[Aron-Ra]

The term “fish” is colloquial, so it need not have sharply defined bounds.

So you're saying it doesn't have to mean anything? Fine, if the word, 'fish' can't be defined, then let's stop using it. We can say 'chordate' instead.

That doesn’t mean that every chordate is a fish.

At what point would an evolving lineage of chordates not be 'fish' anymore? Wait, how can you even make that claim if you admit your word is meaningless?

People are similarly unlikely to agree on the specific wavelength at which red becomes orange, but that doesn’t mean that red and orange are the same thing.

True. That's why we have "red-orange" and "reddish orange". But you can't have that in systematic clades. Only Linnaean taxonomy can be so muddied by transient, inconsistent terms with subjective meanings that are neither explicable nor defensible.

FWIW, if it were up to me I’d probably define fish as vertebrates, the adults of which breathe primarily using internal gills. That would leave out the hagfish, so if you want them you can have them.

And yet, hagfish are universally considered to be fish. So are lungish and mudskippers.

And this is the really funny part. Some invertebrates also evolved gill fronds. But what if a vertebrate lineage did the same thing? What if some quirk erupted in a single family of dolphins which re-opened now aural passage and permitted them to draw oxygen from the water? Would that line of dolphins then become fish? Or would they still be mammals because they descend from mammals?

And if tails were definitive characteristics of Parapithecines, then their loss in parapithecine descendants would mean those descendants were no longer Parapithecines.

Tails are not a definitive characteristic for that group.

I’m not sure why you threw in Catarrhines, since most of them have tails.

Because many of them don't, and on most of them that still have tails, it is reduced and/or useless.

Also, FWIW this site indicates the parapithecines probably went extinct without descendants.

Other sites say otherwise. But even if they did, that wouldn't detract from my point in the least. They and all of their sister groups within anthropoidea at that time, including all the ancestors of eventual Hominoidea were animals which would be universally recognized as monkeys.

Regarding snakes, yes they still belong in the order Squamata. Yes at some point they stopped being lizards. That’s why Squamata includes both lizards and snakes.

SLP mentioned using terms for convenience or tradition. This is necessary when explaining to the laity that Squamata includes things they recognize as lizards and things they've been conditioned to think were not lizards anymore. That's why so many anthropology sites say that Hominoidea includes humans and apes even when those same sites also say that humans are apes.

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.”
--Encarta – Human Evolution

This site says "humans and apes and monkeys." In the same paragraph, it says "humans are apes and monkeys."

Similarly, Squamata includes snakes and lizards, but snakes are lizards.

Snakes have three eyes just like all other lizards. They evolved from lizards, so they are lizards. They were already snakes even when they still had legs, and there are lizards other than snakes who don't have legs anymore.

It may be a popular human convention to say that dinosaurs are lizards and snakes aren't, or that chimpanzees are monkeys but baboons aren't, (I used t hear that a lot) or that Genesis isn't mythology but cosmology is. You have to understand what these categories really are to know if they really belong there.

I’m not worried so much about whether very early “whales” would have been better classified as artiodactyls. From what I gather they have some characteristics from both orders, as well as of the mesonychids, as one might expect. What I’m saying is that at some point between then and now the whale line evolved out of the artiodactyl order and established the cetacea order.

But it seems they established the Cetacea order within Artiodactyla. Taxonomy is not limited to any collection of characters. Once again, it is determined by the ancestry implied by those characters. For example, going back to our hypothetical line of dolphins with gills, would they have evolved "out of" Cetacea? If nothing else changed but that one feature, then would they still be dolphins anymore?Or would they become fish-whales? Even if they were to spawn a whole new order of sea life, they would still belong to the same order they already do.

Otherwise there wouldn’t be two separate orders.

There may not be.

Presumably they did this by dropping some or all of the artiodactyl defining characteristics and establishing definitive cetacean characteristics.

since Cetacea is evidently based on the artiodactyl order -plus a few specific modifications to it. Subsequent alterations may change your descendants, but they can't change your ancestry.

[FONT=&quot]Please refer to my response above beginning: “You seem to be arguing …”[/FONT]

Its the antiquated Linnaean interpretation of these taxonomic levels and imagined terminals that has to change, because you just can't evolve from one lineage to another ever no matter how much you change or how long you have to do it.

 

[Edx]

All I wonder is what a potential amazing learning opportunity for TexasSky!

 

[michabo]

I know I learn a lot whenever Aron-Ra gets typing. Heck, anytime there is a disagreement betwee two intelligent and articulate people, I learn something.

Threads like this make all of CF worthwhile. (I should probably branch out to other places like Usenet to catch more.)

 

[Cirbryn]

Not to speak for Aron, but the human clade and the monkey clade (ignoring proper naming for now) are nested within the same clade. The ultimate question delved into the evolutionary relationship between monkeys and humans. Simply stating that humans and monkeys are in separate clades does not address this question.

The ultimate question was about life, the universe and everything. The question we've been trying to answer recently in this thread is whether (by commonly accepted definitions) humans are monkeys, or cetateans are artiodactyls. I never stated that humans and monkeys were in separate clades. I consider them to be in the same clade. The point I've been trying to make (and apparently failing miserably at) is that the commonly accepted definitions of "monkey" and "monkey clade" are not the same thing. Humans are in the monkey clade. Humans aren't monkeys.

The fact of the matter is that monkeys and humans are both primates, were always primates, and will always be primates no matter what changes occur in the future. If the primate lineage is successful for the next billion years then the primate lineage could be considered a new phylum.

I agree in theory about the new phylum part, but (again) I don't agree that "primates" and "primate lineage" are the same thing. "Primates" refers to a specific Linnaean order, with specific defining characteristics. If some members of the primate lineage evolve to lose those defining characteristics, then they will no longer be primates, but they will remain part of the primate linneage.

And we could consider primates as the characteristics shared by humans (and all other apes in the hominidae clade) and monkeys as defining the primate clade.

You could, but you'd be wrong because you'd be leaving out the lemures and tarsiers. What I don't get is why either of you insist on defining characteristics for a clade in the first place. The clade is defined as everything that evolved from the last primate common ancestor. You don't need unique common morphological characteristics to define it further; which is a good thing since after enough evolutionary time there might not be any such characteristics. Linnaean taxa are defined according to common characteristics, which is why it is possible to evolve out of Linnaean taxa.

Then you haven't been around these debates very long. It's a common argument.

No, I've been around these debates for many years. That's why I was surprised. I've seen it used by Creationists many times but never by an evolutionist. It's a very poor argument because it depends entirely on moving goalposts.

Isn't that exactly what has happened? If you knew nothing of dog breeds would you put chihuahuas and great danes in the same species, or even in the same genus? 10,000 years ago there were wolves. Look at the changes that has occurred in that lineage, and yet they are still called dogs, or at least canids. Look at the diversification that has occurred in the mammal lineage, and yet they all remain mammals.

You're asking whether dogs have evolved so much that they're no longer dogs? No they haven't. That doesn't mean they couldn't. From a Linnaean perspective they could be called dogs so long as they remained in the same species, which would depend on the amount of interbreeding they did. They do show a great deal of morphological variation, but they also interbreed sufficiently with each other and with wolves to all be considered one big ring species. From a colloquial perspective, I don't know exactly what the minimum morphological change would be to cause a member of the dog lineage to no longer be considered a dog, but I can point to examples that would be sufficient. If a dog descendant took to the water and evolved to look like a seal, for instance, then it wouldn't be a dog anymore. Mammals have remained mammals so far because all the members retain the distinguishing characteristics thereof.

No one is proposing that the switch from gill to lung occurred in a generation or two. Most agree that functional gills and lungs (eg lungfish) is a viable intermediate, and such functions evolved slowly and incrementally.

I know, but Aron was suggesting evolution doesn't produce "fundamental" differences, regardless of the number of generations involved.

Stegocehpalians, Osteoicthyans, and Hominidae are all Vertebratas and will always be within Vertebrata.

But a member of any of those lineages might one day evolve to lose its vertebrae, at which point it would no longer be within the Linnaean subphylum Vertebrata as that is currently defined.

 

[Cirbryn]

First off, sorry but I'm going to have to cherry pick what I respond to as it's late and I'm pretty tired. If I get a chance I'll try to pick up the rest in another post.

It wouldn't matter if it was a Linnaean term or not. When common folk criticize evolution for teaching that "men came from monkeys", they're not even thinking about Linnaean taxonomy.

Be that as it may, I'm criticizing you for teaching that "men are monkeys". That's a different kettle of fish.

But we still have to decide whether that statement is accurate. And to do that, we have to understand what a monkey is.

More specifically, we have to understand what most folks mean when they say "monkey". All your arguments regarding how "monkey" ought to be treated as a cladistic term are off point (though I did like the pictures). The fact remains most people aren't using the term cladistically.

Its funny to me that just three years ago, I was on your side about most of this, and now, here I am arguing against my old position. But as I said, I was proven wrong.

Actually, based on the TO thread you cited it doesn't look to me like you were on my side of this specific argument. My argument is that by the commonly accepted definitions, humans are not monkeys. Your argument seems to have been that a taxonomic system allowing one group to grow out of another (in other words one that supports paraphyletic groups) is a good thing. I agree with the argument you made there, and would enjoy discussing it further, but I want to get this first argument about definitions settled first. I think the post from John Wilkins in your TO thread sums it up pretty well: ""Fish" is a grade taxon. It is in clade terms totally paraphyletic, and where the lines get drawn are arbitrary. "Monkey" is a somewhat less arbitrary grade-based taxon. ... This is *not* a debate over names, it is a debate over evolution."
Unlike that debate, our debate is over names. As Wilkins points out, neither the name "fish" nor "monkey" are cladistic. That being the case, humans are not monkeys.

From what I've been able to determine, the most scientific, and best possible definition for the common layman understanding of 'monkey' is as follows;

"... derived character-based description as opposed to a cladistic taxon."

Works for me.

And I think, "anthropoid primates -exclusive of Hominioidea" is another way of saying "all of them -except us", -which of course is an admission that we are in fact one of them, and just don't want to admit it.

There is nothing wrong with defining something according to both the characteristics shared and the characteristics excluded. Furthermore, even if there was something wrong with it, the fact remains, that's how "monkey" is commonly defined. You have to play the hand you're dealt. This isn't a debate about whether humans are monkeys according to how you'd like to define the term monkeys.

Then accept the challenge I already made for you. Explain to me how a lineage of dogs could beget descendants who aren't dogs anymore.

See my response to Loudmouth above.

[FONT=&quot]“Species” is a Linnaean taxon. If two populations of the same species evolve so they are no longer the same species, then one or both has evolved out of its taxon. Since we agree this is possible for at least one taxon, I’m asking why you don’t think it’s possible for other taxa.[/FONT]

We don't agree on that. I don't know why you thought we did.

Seriously? So you think if two populations of the same species evolve so they are no longer the same species, ... then they still are the same species? Possibly you think they would still be the same species even if they could no longer interbreed? You're talk of dogs below isn't helping me.

If a humanless environment were to rid the world of Pekenese and Shi-tzus and all that, along with any intermediate dog breeds, -in favor of a half dozen specialized mutt-types, each individually successful in their own niche, then shepherd-hounds in the forests, fox-like collie-terriers in the deserts, cattle-hunting rotweiler-mastif types, or Dachshunds living like badgers might all become distinct species. Yet none of them would have evolved "out of" any taxon. Its not even possible to do that.

Yes they would have evolved out of the species taxon. Species are defined according to the separateness of their gene pools. Dachsunds and collies would have separate gene pools as soon as the intermediate breeds were removed. Hence by definition they would become separate species. The fact that the evolution of reproductive barriers would have occurred prior to interruption of gene flow would be unusual but not unheard of. The same happens in any ring species in which the intermediates are lost.

Similarly, in our analogy post-apocolyptic dogs, Canus lupus familiaris rot and Canus lupus familiaris dachshund would be different species forever contained wthin the same taxon they belonged to before.

Fine and dandy, but that's a completely different system from what I was asking about. The question I had assumed the answer to was whether you agree it is possible to evolve out of the Linnaean taxon of "species".

Wrong again. Look it up.

"Class Osteichthyes are the bony fish, a group paraphyletic to the land vertebrates, which are sometimes included. Most belong to the Actinopterygii. The others are called lobe-finned fish, and include lungfish and coelacanths. They are traditionally treated as a class of vertebrates, with subclasses Actinopterygii and Sarcopterygii, but newer schemes may divide them into several separate classes. The vast majority of fish are bony fish, and therefore belong to class Osteichthyes."
--TheFreeDictionary

So are you saying we are in both class Osteichthyes and class Mammalia?

 

[michabo]

Cibryn,

You seem to be saying two opposite things which is confusing me a bit:

You're asking whether dogs have evolved so much that they're no longer dogs? No they haven't. That doesn't mean they couldn't. From a Linnaean perspective they could be called dogs so long as they remained in the same species, which would depend on the amount of interbreeding they did.

Okay, so you're saying "dogs" defines a species. Is that right? I don't think I would agree with you, but I'll go with it...

From a colloquial perspective, I don't know exactly what the minimum morphological change would be to cause a member of the dog lineage to no longer be considered a dog, but I can point to examples that would be sufficient. If a dog descendant took to the water and evolved to look like a seal, for instance, then it wouldn't be a dog anymore.

So now we're talking about something totally different. This isn't just the inability to interbreed, this is something much more. Tigers and lions can interbreed, sort of, but it isn't much of a stretch to imagine that they can't. Your hypothetical wants us to take the change much, much farther. It sure sounds to me like you aren't talking about species differences anymore. It sounds to me like you're saying that something won't be a dog if it doesn't look like a dog (whatever that means).

This seems to mesh with your comment about removing lungfish and hagfish from "fish". They don't look like cannonical fish - a salmon or something, I guess. What about the leafy sea dragon that I linked earlier - that sure doesn't look like a fish. Or what about a chihuahua - they sure don't look like dogs. Maybe we should call them something else.

To confuse things further, you say:

Mammals have remained mammals so far because all the members retain the distinguishing characteristics thereof.

So now, instead of talking about a single species, you are talking about mammals as a whole, still leaving us with the clear implication that if something stops looking like a mammal, then we are justified in not calling it a mammal. To use your example above, if a mammal goes into the water, then maybe we can stop calling it a mammal. Seals and whales, for example, hardly look like a cannonical mammal.


I'm pretty sure I know what Aron-Ra is saying. Once a dog, always a dog. I'm not sure what you're saying. It seems to be once a dog, still a dog as long as it can interbreed. Then it is once a dog, always a dog unless it looks really freaky.

You seem to be defining "dog" based on some superficial characteristics, much like Creationist parodies. You know, saying that a platypus is a duck because it has a beak. Under your definitions, it sounds possible for a fox to give birth to a dog, as Dawkins talks about in "Ancestor's Tale" where Russian foxes are bred for docility and end up looking like collies. They look just like dogs, but of course would not interbreed. Are they dogs? Based on your statements, I can picture you saying both "yes" and "no".

Can you clarify?

 

[Pats]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/05/17/human.chimp.split.ap/index.html

I think, that, there may be some miss understanding about the definitons of terms.

Some one may have been trying to say that the literal definition of the theory of evolution is something to the affect of, the changing of alleles over time.

This is different from neo-Darwinism wich contains in it the theory of common ancestory.

This kind of misunderstand occurs when definitions of words or phrases are unclear and words or phrases are misused... or, you could also say some one is splitting hairs over words. However, in a forum that delves deeply into scientific data, it is important to be specific.

Specifically, neo-Darwinism, or common ancestory teach that man came from primates.

 

[michabo]

Some one may have been trying to say that the literal definition of the theory of evolution is something to the affect of, the changing of alleles over time.

Well, that is the definition of biological evolution...

This is different from neo-Darwinism wich contains in it the theory of common ancestory.

That's a corollary. Based on our knowledge of evolution and our observations, we have concluded that we have a common ancestry. This really doesn't have to be a part of evolution and once you start looking at the very earliest forms of life, you'll see that there is a lot of gene mixing which messes up the idea of common ancestry.

It is fairly simple to show that there will be a point when all humans have a common ancestor. And, due to our similarities, humans and all other apes will have a common ancestor. The alternative would be to have two unrelated species have mutations and physical changes which are kept entirely in lockstep to the point that hundreds of thousands of years later (or millions), they are genetically similar enough to interbreed (for the intra-species common ancestor) or to have very similar DNA (for inter-species common ancestors).


I don't mean to put words in your mouth, but when you talk about problems with evolution because of common ancestry, you are complaining about a consequence, and nothing to do with the theory itself.

How do I put this? You have kids, right? Let's say you are having a disput about whether your kids should eat their broccoli. You can explain why vitamins and nutrients are essential, why they will be healthier and happier, why it is a tasty vegetable (esp with yummy cheese sauce) and why you, as the concerned parent, get to make these decisions. Your hypothetical child may agree with all of your statements, not find any flaws in your reasoning, but then still says "but I don't wanna!"

I see echoes of that here, not that you remind me of a whiny child. But if you have a problem with a conclusion, then the "right" answer isn't to say that the theory is wrong because it comes out with an answer you don't like (especially if you dislike it only on theological grounds!). If you have a problem with it, then examine the evidence and the reasoning. If there aren't any flaws, then it may be that you should ask yourself why you are rejecting the conclusion, and if this is a reasonable, rational reason.

Specifically, neo-Darwinism, or common ancestory teach that man came from primates.

Haha! We've just seen several days of disputes between two very educated, articulate individuals over whether or not we should call ourselves "monkeys"!

Anyway, common ancestry doesn't teach anything. Common ancestry is a conclusion that we reach after studying molecular, physical and fossil evidence. And yes, a part of that does demonstrate that our ancestors were primates. I would say that we are still primates as Aron-Ra has convinced me that cladistics is the only consistent way to describe life.

 

[SLP]

So instead of naming your kingdom, phylum, class, etc., we would instead name the clades only by their lineage. For example:

Biota
.Eukarya
..Opisthokonta
...Animalia
....Eumetazoa
.....Bilateria
......Coelemata
.......Deuterostomata
........Chordata
.........Craniata
..........Vertebrata
...........Gnathostomata
............Osteichthyes
.............Sarcopterygii
..............Stegocephali
...............Tetrapoda
................Anthracosauria
.................Amniota
..................Synapsida
...................Therapsidae
....................Cynodonta
.....................Theria (mammal)
......................Eutheria (placental mammal)
.......................Euarchontoglire
........................Archonta
.........................Primate
..........................Haplorhini
...........................Anthropoid (monkey)
............................Catarrhini (Old World monkey)
.............................Hominoidea (ape)
..............................Hominidae (great ape)
...............................Hominini (humanoid)
................................Homo (human)
.................................Homo sapiens (you)

This list assumes that “anthropoid” means ‘monkey’ rather than ‘primate’.

Yet, anthropoid means 'man-like'. Why redefine terms?

 

[SLP]

Of course, the Taxonomicon also classifies chimpanzees as a human subspecies and considers humans to be Old World monkeys in the most literal possible sense, categorizing all humans in the clade of Cercopithecoidea. I’m sure SLP would be delighted with them!

I have authored and co-authored a couple of papers suggesting that chimps be in the genus Homo. However, the suffix -oidea means "like" (or in this case, a large group of 'like' things).
I keep noticing that nothing you link to has monkeys, apes, humans nested within Propliopithecidae ( or -oidea, depending on the scheme).

 

[Pats]

Well, that is the definition of biological evolution...


That's a corollary. Based on our knowledge of evolution and our observations, we have concluded that we have a common ancestry. This really doesn't have to be a part of evolution and once you start looking at the very earliest forms of life, you'll see that there is a lot of gene mixing which messes up the idea of common ancestry.

It is fairly simple to show that there will be a point when all humans have a common ancestor. And, due to our similarities, humans and all other apes will have a common ancestor. The alternative would be to have two unrelated species have mutations and physical changes which are kept entirely in lockstep to the point that hundreds of thousands of years later (or millions), they are genetically similar enough to interbreed (for the intra-species common ancestor) or to have very similar DNA (for inter-species common ancestors).


I don't mean to put words in your mouth, but when you talk about problems with evolution because of common ancestry, you are complaining about a consequence, and nothing to do with the theory itself.

How do I put this? You have kids, right? Let's say you are having a disput about whether your kids should eat their broccoli. You can explain why vitamins and nutrients are essential, why they will be healthier and happier, why it is a tasty vegetable (esp with yummy cheese sauce) and why you, as the concerned parent, get to make these decisions. Your hypothetical child may agree with all of your statements, not find any flaws in your reasoning, but then still says "but I don't wanna!"

I see echoes of that here, not that you remind me of a whiny child. But if you have a problem with a conclusion, then the "right" answer isn't to say that the theory is wrong because it comes out with an answer you don't like (especially if you dislike it only on theological grounds!). If you have a problem with it, then examine the evidence and the reasoning. If there aren't any flaws, then it may be that you should ask yourself why you are rejecting the conclusion, and if this is a reasonable, rational reason.


Haha! We've just seen several days of disputes between two very educated, articulate individuals over whether or not we should call ourselves "monkeys"!

Anyway, common ancestry doesn't teach anything. Common ancestry is a conclusion that we reach after studying molecular, physical and fossil evidence. And yes, a part of that does demonstrate that our ancestors were primates. I would say that we are still primates as Aron-Ra has convinced me that cladistics is the only consistent way to describe life.

Hi Michabo,Actually, in the post that you are responding to me on here, I was only attempting to theorize on a possible misunderstanding that might have resulted in the OP's POV.However, if you read the forum you know I have my doubts about common ancestory. I am undecided. Thanks for you input.

 

[SLP]

Not enough time to address the entire post, but one or two comments:

I corrected you yesterday, but I don’t mind doing it again today.

An assertion of opinion is not a correction. Sorry.

“Propliopithecus - A primate group known as Propliopithecus, one lineage of which is sometimes called Aegyptopithecus, had primitive catarrhine features—that is, it had many of the basic features that Old World monkeys, apes, and humans share today. Scientists believe, therefore, that Propliopithecus resembles the common ancestor of all later Old World monkeys and apes. Thus, Propliopithecus may also be considered an ancestor or a close relative of an ancestor of humans.”
--Encarta - Human Evolution

Encarta. Encarta?

Propliopithecoidea has yet to be recognized as a human ancestral clade despite this position, and I think because of it –because these Old World monkeys were undeniably monkeys.

When it becomes recognized as such, I will accept it.

Don’t trust that site. It’s a nice attempt. I like it a lot. But its not peer-reviewed, and is consequently rife with errors on nearly every page. The author admirably admits as much on his home page –warning readers not to rely on his work as a scientific resource. This one shouldn't be either. But it is more accurate.

Nor is it a scientific resource. In fact, that one does not even list any citations.
It is all very nice that you are looking at this issue, but I think I will put a bit more stock in Delson and Fleagle, if you don't mind.

 

[Loudmouth]

The point I've been trying to make (and apparently failing miserably at) is that the commonly accepted definitions of "monkey" and "monkey clade" are not the same thing. Humans are in the monkey clade. Humans aren't monkeys.

Why aren't humans monkeys?

I agree in theory about the new phylum part, but (again) I don't agree that "primates" and "primate lineage" are the same thing. "Primates" refers to a specific Linnaean order, with specific defining characteristics. If some members of the primate lineage evolve to lose those defining characteristics, then they will no longer be primates, but they will remain part of the primate linneage.

[/color]

Humans are primates. I can understand your argument about humans not being monkeys, but we are most definitely primates.

What I don't get is why either of you insist on defining characteristics for a clade in the first place.

Because that is how you define and root clades. They are called synapomorphies, the features that all species in the clade share. The features that are not shared are derived characteristics. It is assumed that the shared characteristics were present in the common ancestor of the clade and that new features developed in separate lineages.

Linnaean taxa are defined according to common characteristics, which is why it is possible to evolve out of Linnaean taxa.

[/color]

Linnaean taxa have a very simple problem, they can't cope with continual evolution. The Linnaean system was meant to categorize a still shot of a system in motion. This is why cladistics is the better system, it is capable of organizing species in an ever evolving landscape.

No, I've been around these debates for many years. That's why I was surprised. I've seen it used by Creationists many times but never by an evolutionist. It's a very poor argument because it depends entirely on moving goalposts.

Agreed.

From a colloquial perspective, I don't know exactly what the minimum morphological change would be to cause a member of the dog lineage to no longer be considered a dog, but I can point to examples that would be sufficient. If a dog descendant took to the water and evolved to look like a seal, for instance, then it wouldn't be a dog anymore.

Why wouldn't it be a dog? There are dog breeds right now that have partially adapted to water (eg webbed feet, water repellent undercoat). At what point are they not dogs?

Mammals have remained mammals so far because all the members retain the distinguishing characteristics thereof.

If all mammals share a common ancestor that leaves you with an uncomfortable conclusion. At one time there was single species of mammal. If taxonomists used the still shot of the Linnaean system they would be classified as a single species, not as a Class. Would the development of specialized teats and a placenta move them out of the Class Mammalia? Apparently not. If all mammals share a single common ancestoral species then you have to admit that diversification does not move you out of a taxon.

But a member of any of those lineages might one day evolve to lose its vertebrae, at which point it would no longer be within the Linnaean subphylum Vertebrata as that is currently defined.

From developmental biology we know that vertebrae, or at least their centers of ossification, would almost certainly be present during embryonic development. Paedomorphies (the rentention of juvenile or fetal characteristics) are more of a problem but easily resolved by looking at other characteristics.

 

[Lilandra]

like a daschund subspecies gone wild to illustrate that animals are always the same clade they are descended from. I am assuming that you mean despite a major environmental change an animal is always the animal it descended from. In this case and in the case of humans domesticated life has selected for unusual traits. Daschunds today are valued for weiner-cuteness. In the past the shape was valued for being able to squeeze into burrows to eliminate pests or for hunting.

But, you can also make this point using extant feral dogs like dingoes. Dingoes displaced native carnivorous marsupial species in Australia.

Which is sort of an interesting tangent...

Is this a canine or a feline like the common name Tasmanian Tiger implies?

The Tasmanian Tiger is a good example of why cladistics is superior to the Linnaen classification system. Cladistics relies on more criteria than morphology. Of course, close scrutiny of the "Tiger" would reveal that it is a marsupial and thus not a member even of the Carnivora grouping that most mammalian predators are descended from.

Evolutionary relationships reveal a more interesting related system than morphology alone. The relationships are not as straight forward as morphology alone like in the case of the Tasmanian Tiger.

Which brings us back to dingoes. Is a dingo still a dog? Is it still a fish? Common names like dog, fish, and monkey are too ambigious to be useful in classification.

So is a human a monkey or an ape? Evolutionary relationships could go either way. If you consider monkeys to be the tailed primates in the Americas than no. In that case, humans are simians a cousin of monkeys.

If you consider monkeys to be divided into Old World and New World Monkeys yes.

I think the common usage of the word monkey has made this a matter of semantics. Sort of like the common name of the Thylacine or Tasmanian Tiger.

My humble 2 cents ya'll are way more learned in this than I am.

 

[Cirbryn]

Okay, so you're saying "dogs" defines a species. Is that right? I don't think I would agree with you, but I'll go with it...


So now we're talking about something totally different. This isn't just the inability to interbreed, this is something much more. Tigers and lions can interbreed, sort of, but it isn't much of a stretch to imagine that they can't. Your hypothetical wants us to take the change much, much farther. It sure sounds to me like you aren't talking about species differences anymore. It sounds to me like you're saying that something won't be a dog if it doesn't look like a dog (whatever that means).

This seems to mesh with your comment about removing lungfish and hagfish from "fish". They don't look like cannonical fish - a salmon or something, I guess. What about the leafy sea dragon that I linked earlier - that sure doesn't look like a fish. Or what about a chihuahua - they sure don't look like dogs. Maybe we should call them something else.

To confuse things further, you say:

So now, instead of talking about a single species, you are talking about mammals as a whole, still leaving us with the clear implication that if something stops looking like a mammal, then we are justified in not calling it a mammal. To use your example above, if a mammal goes into the water, then maybe we can stop calling it a mammal. Seals and whales, for example, hardly look like a cannonical mammal.


I'm pretty sure I know what Aron-Ra is saying. Once a dog, always a dog. I'm not sure what you're saying. It seems to be once a dog, still a dog as long as it can interbreed. Then it is once a dog, always a dog unless it looks really freaky.

You seem to be defining "dog" based on some superficial characteristics, much like Creationist parodies. You know, saying that a platypus is a duck because it has a beak. Under your definitions, it sounds possible for a fox to give birth to a dog, as Dawkins talks about in "Ancestor's Tale" where Russian foxes are bred for docility and end up looking like collies. They look just like dogs, but of course would not interbreed. Are they dogs? Based on your statements, I can picture you saying both "yes" and "no".

Can you clarify?

Most colloquial terms follow the boundaries of Linnaean terms terms pretty well, though they often combine several Linnaean groups into a single colloquial one. Accordingly I was initially going to assume that “dog” would be the same as “Canis lupus familiaris”, and that therefore anything that was no longer “Canis lupus familiaris” would no longer be a dog. If you remove all the intermediate breeds between dachshunds and collies the two breeds would be genetically isolated, so from a Linnaean perspective at least one of them would no longer be in the Canis lupus species (let alone the familiaris subspecies) even though neither had changed morphologically. It occurred to me that colloquial usage probably wouldn’t track that, and that so long as they both continued to look like dachshunds and collies respectively they would both probably continue to be referred to as dogs. Accordingly I tried to answer the question both from a Linnaean perspective (focusing on genetic isolation) and a colloquial one (focusing on morphology).

The Linnaean taxon of “species” is the only one that focuses on genetic isolation. All the others focus on definitive morphological characteristics, and so are likely to be tracked better by their colloquial counterparts. So from either a Linnaean or colloquial perspective a descendant of mammals would not be a mammal itself if it lost the defining characteristics of “mammalness”, such as hair, milk and three inner-ear bones. Morphological changes that maintained those definitive characteristics, such as the what cetaceans have gone through, wouldn’t bring their identity as mammals into question.

As for the “dogs” evolved from foxes, you’re basically asking to what extent would a colloquial term track the Linnaean group under that specific circumstance. Since colloquial terms don’t change according to specific rules, it’s hard for me to say. It would depend on whether calling them “dogs” became popularly accepted, which would depend on how much they looked like dogs, and also on how much influence people like dog breeders (who would care about ability to interbreed) might have. In general, I’m trying to communicate, and also live by, the idea that we have to look at what a colloquial term means to the people we’re talking to when we make pronouncements about such terms. We can’t redefine the term to mean what we think it ought to and then not tell anyone we’ve done so.

 

[Aron-Ra]

Biota
.Eukarya
..Opisthokonta
...Animalia
....Eumetazoa
.....Bilateria
......Coelemata
.......Deuterostomata
........Chordata
.........Craniata
..........Vertebrata
...........Gnathostomata
............Osteichthyes
.............Sarcopterygii
..............Stegocephali
...............Tetrapoda
................Anthracosauria
.................Amniota
..................Synapsida
...................Therapsidae
....................Cynodonta
.....................Theria (mammal)
......................Eutheria (placental mammal)
.......................Euarchontoglire
........................Archonta
.........................Primate
..........................Haplorhini
...........................Anthropoid (monkey)
............................Catarrhini (Old World monkey)
.............................Hominoidea (ape)
..............................Hominidae (great ape)
...............................Hominini (humanoid)
................................Homo (human)
.................................Homo sapiens (you)

This list assumes that “anthropoid” means ‘monkey’ rather than ‘primate’.

Yet, anthropoid means 'man-like'. Why redefine terms?

I'm not. Anthropoid doesn't mean 'primate', does it? I accept that earlier cladograms I have seen were wrong when they listed Anthropoidea as the order of primates. These were the ones that used to list tarsiers as prosimians and monkeys as Haplorhines. I recognize now that Primata can be listed as the name of that order after all -though I've never seen listed in a cladogram that way.

I have authored and co-authored a couple of papers suggesting that chimps be in the genus Homo.

And how have you determined that? I would have thought basal hominines like Ardipithecus, Australopithecines, and Paranthropines would be the very least you could include in that definition. If they are human, they should at least walk upright, right?

However, the suffix -oidea means "like" (or in this case, a large group of 'like' things).

You're still fixating on the what the name of the clade means, and ignoring what the clade itself now represents. For example, within Primata, Haplorhini is the clade of dry-nosed primates. Anthropoidea is the clade of monkeys (and monkey descendants in denial). Within that group, Hominoidea is the clade of apes. Within that, Hominidae is the clade of "Great" apes. Within that, Hominini is the clade of bi-pedal great apes. And within that, Homo is the clade of humans. This interpretation isn't redefined, but it is more meaningful, easier to understand, and more accurate than your subjective definition alone can be.

I keep noticing that nothing you link to has monkeys, apes, humans nested within Propliopithecidae ( or -oidea, depending on the scheme).

Then you haven't noticed much so far. Still, ask and you will receive:

"Anthropologists and primatologists have been among the last researchers to adopt phylogenetic methodology and taxonomy. As such, a number of important primate clade names remain paraphyletic. The name Catarrhini É. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire 1812 (converted clade name) is here defined as the most inclusive clade containing Aegyptopithecus zeuxis, Pliopithecus antiquus, Macaca fuscata and Homo sapiens, but not Cebus capucinus. There is substantial debate about the nature of the “Propliopithecoidea”and the “Pliopithecoidea”- they have alternately been described as basal hominoids, basal cercopithecoids, basal catarrhines and sister taxa to the Catarrhini (Ross et al., 1998; Begun, 2002; Rasmussen, 2002). Either or both groups may be paraphyletic. We include these fossil taxa within the Catarrhini here, but more phylogenetic work needs to be done to determine their position within the group. If Catopithecus browni and Aegyptopithecus zeuxis form a monophyletic group that excludes Dionysopithecus shuanguouensis and Plesioliopithecus locker, the clade name Propliopithecoidea will be available. If Dionysopithecus shuanguouensis and Plesioliopithecus lockeri form a monophyletic group that excludes Catopithecus browni and Aegyptopithecus zeuxis, the name Pliopithecoidea will be available."
--First Phylogenetic Nomenclature Meeting, Paris, Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, July 6-9, 2004, Académie des Sciences de Paris.

I corrected you yesterday, but I don’t mind doing it again today.

An assertion of opinion is not a correction. Sorry.

I didn't do that. I don't use the same tactics you do. You asserted your opinion that Hominoidea was not considered to be nested within Propliopithecoidea, and I presented objectively-verifiable evidence that it is.

“Propliopithecus - A primate group known as Propliopithecus, one lineage of which is sometimes called Aegyptopithecus, had primitive catarrhine features—that is, it had many of the basic features that Old World monkeys, apes, and humans share today. Scientists believe, therefore, that Propliopithecus resembles the common ancestor of all later Old World monkeys and apes. Thus, Propliopithecus may also be considered an ancestor or a close relative of an ancestor of humans.”
--Encarta - Human Evolution

Encarta. Encarta?

Yes, Encarta, which was wise enough to allow this definition to be written by Dr. Richard B. Potts, field paleoanthropologist in the rift valley, author of Early Hominid Activities at Olduvai (1988), and curator of Anthropology at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. I figure he, and a common encyclopedia can prove you wrong on this point -as easily as any of the scientific citations I've provided so far.

Propliopithecoidea has yet to be recognized as a human ancestral clade despite this position, and I think because of it –because these Old World monkeys were undeniably monkeys.

When it becomes recognized as such, I will accept it.

You're such a follower.

Don’t trust that site. It’s a nice attempt. I like it a lot. But its not peer-reviewed, and is consequently rife with errors on nearly every page. The author admirably admits as much on his home page –warning readers not to rely on his work as a scientific resource. This one shouldn't be either. But it is more accurate.

Nor is it a scientific resource. In fact, that one does not even list any citations.

I deliberately deleted them as I use this page exclusively for illustrating the concept of phylogeny to laymen in these debates, and the people I've shown it to were confused by the taxons and surnames seemingly bleeding together. When I complete a page for scientists to scrutinize, it will be different.

It is all very nice that you are looking at this issue, but I think I will put a bit more stock in Delson and Fleagle, if you don't mind.

I relied on them also, even in the construct of my tree. The problem is that Fleagle's taxonomy is Linnaean, and consequently can't show anything nested anywhere. This is why I think the Phylocode link I gave you before, from Ohio University, is so important to this discussion:

"(1) Because of the many documented problemswith instability and lack of comparability of ranks in the formal Linnaean system, we need to move to a rank-free phylogenetic classification system at all levels; (2) In such a system, not all hypothesized monophyletic groups need be named, but those that are named formally should be given unranked (buthierarchically nested) uninomials; (3) The least inclusive taxon, formally known as "species," should betreated in the same unranked manner. ...Biological classification should be a set of nested, named groups for internested clades at alllevels. Not all clades need be named, but those that are should be named on the basis of evidence for monophyly."

Your way simply can't work as well.

 

[Aron-Ra]

When common folk criticize evolution for teaching that "men came from monkeys", they're not even thinking about Linnaean taxonomy.

Be that as it may, I'm criticizing you for teaching that "men are monkeys". That's a different kettle of fish.

The fact remains that you cannot give a complete character description of every trait common to all monkeys in general, -or Old World monkeys specifically- without describing humans and other apes at the same time.

More specifically, we have to understand what most folks mean when they say "monkey".

Most Americans think 'monkey' means every other primate -except humans.

Whenever there was a gorilla in an old movie, it would involve an actor "in a monkey suit", and the first page of a Google image search on "monkey" showed four chimpanzees and an orangutan. Most Americans seem to think that 'monkey' and 'ape' mean exactly the same thing. Those few who can make any distinction may say that 'monkey' means "every monkey except apes", and that 'ape' means "every large tailless primate except humans." Again, no reason is given for these exclusions except that people prefer not to consider themselves apes, and primatologists would rather not see apes as monkeys even when they clearly are a descendant subset.

All your arguments regarding how "monkey" ought to be treated as a cladistic term are off point (though I did like the pictures). The fact remains most people aren't using the term cladistically.

That doesn't matter. You're missing the point that they would have to use it cladistically whenever they discover a new species, and need to determine whether it is a monkey or not.

its funny to me that just three years ago, I was on your side about most of this, and now, here I am arguing against my old position. But as I said, I was proven wrong.

Actually, based on the TO thread you cited it doesn't look to me like you were on my side of this specific argument. My argument is that by the commonly accepted definitions, humans are not monkeys.

That was my argument too. I also argued that mammals weren't fish and snakes weren't lizards, -just like you are now. But of course if one is forced to put that definition to practical application,then that definition has to include us.

Your argument seems to have been that a taxonomic system allowing one group to grow out of another (in other words one that supports paraphyletic groups) is a good thing. I agree with the argument you made there, and would enjoy discussing it further, but I want to get this first argument about definitions settled first.

That's fine. For now, all I will say about that is that the evolutionary grades I was arguing for turned out not to work the way I thought they would. Because whether you're talking about biodiversity, vehicles, art forms, electrical appliances, or even rocks, -you still have to classify them by the collective characters common to everything in that category. The grades we used to agree on don't work because it forces you to list things according to what they are not, and what they are not often turns out to be a matter of traditional convention and subjective opinion rather than the actual case anyway.

I think the post from John Wilkins in your TO thread sums it up pretty well: ""Fish" is a grade taxon. It is in clade terms totally paraphyletic, and where the lines get drawn are arbitrary. "Monkey" is a somewhat less arbitrary grade-based taxon. ... This is *not* a debate over names, it is a debate over evolution."

Unlike that debate, our debate is over names. As Wilkins points out, neither the name "fish" nor "monkey" are cladistic. That being the case, humans are not monkeys.

Why not? Give me some objectively-verifiable reason to prove me wrong again. Because when I argued from your side, I couldn't come up with one.

From what I've been able to determine, the most scientific, and best possible definition for the common layman understanding of 'monkey' is as follows;

"... derived character-based description as opposed to a cladistic taxon."

Works for me.

No it doesn't, and that's the point. As you yourself have already admitted, it's useless in classifying the category it pretends to describe because its definition is variable, transient, subjective, based on traditional convention without practical application.

And I think, "anthropoid primates -exclusive of Hominioidea" is another way of saying "all of them -except us", -which of course is an admission that we are in fact one of them, and just don't want to admit it.

There is nothing wrong with defining something according to both the characteristics shared and the characteristics excluded.

Yes there is. If you use "monkey" as a taxon at all, (and you admit you do) then lacking any definition with cladistic value means that word lacks any value at all. Also, if a child is born with no arms or legs, then your system wouldn't recognize it as human.

Now, if there was ever some weird birth defect like that which was passed into subsequent generations, say in some isolated population where every member carried that trait, then if they were isolated from the rest of humanity long enough that they wouldn't interbreed with outsiders anymore, then would they still be human or not?

Cladistically, we would look at the first eruption of that new inherited trait, we would see all the groups which evidently stem from that point, and we would consider that a clade, a clade still contained within another clade. But the occurance of a new clade cannot exclude it from its parent. Using the Vadoma tribe above as a hypothetical example, anyone descending from them would be Vadoma, but they would still be human even if they couldn't interbreed with us anymore.

Furthermore, even if there was something wrong with it, the fact remains, that's how "monkey" is commonly defined. You have to play the hand you're dealt. This isn't a debate about whether humans are monkeys according to how you'd like to define the term monkeys.

When you find some new something that someone thinks might be a monkey, would you examine it, and start listing all the things it doesn't have? "Well, its not a human, not dog, not bird, not a radio, nor a '37 Packard. Neither is it Presbyterian. Its not a blamonge, and its certainly not a planet in the vicinity of Betelgeuse. Tell you what; let's all have a vote on whether we think this looks like what each of us wants to believe a monkey is. Then we'll vote on whether its not that either."

You have no objectively-verifiable way to prove a propliopithecine or a gibbon was not a monkey. You only say they're not because you've been trained to believe they're not. And the only way you would ever be able to prove if it was a monkey is if you use that term with a consistently invariable definition. I'm betting you can't do that without saying "all of _____ ...except us"

 

[Aron-Ra]

Then accept the challenge I already made for you. Explain to me how a lineage of dogs could beget descendants who aren't dogs anymore.

See my response to Loudmouth above.

I did. According to you, African wild dogs, dholes, raccoon dogs, and bush dogs were never dogs in the first place since they were never the same species as Canus lupus familiaris.

Maybe you should rethink that, and refer to your yorki terrier as a wolf (another paraphyletic term) -since wolves were never dogs, and domestic dogs were never the same species as any of the wild dogs except for dingos.

We don't agree on that. I don't know why you thought we did.

Seriously? So you think if two populations of the same species evolve so they are no longer the same species, ... then they still are the same species? Possibly you think they would still be the same species even if they could no longer interbreed?

Yes. You even said so yourself. If we killed off every breed except dachshunds, mastiffs and great danes, then, according to your system, Dachshunds wouldn't be dogs anymore because they would then be genetically isolated from all remaining dog breeds even without undergoing any further changes in their own breed.

You're talk of dogs below isn't helping me.

If a humanless environment were to rid the world of Pekinese and Shi-tzus and all that, along with any intermediate dog breeds, -in favor of a half dozen specialized mutt-types, each individually successful in their own niche, then shepherd-hounds in the forests, fox-like collie-terriers in the deserts, cattle-hunting rotweiler-mastif types, or Dachshunds living like badgers might all become distinct species. Yet none of them would have evolved "out of" any taxon. Its not even possible to do that.

Yes they would have evolved out of the species taxon. Species are defined according to the separateness of their gene pools. Dachshunds and collies would have separate gene pools as soon as the intermediate breeds were removed. Hence by definition they would become separate species. The fact that the evolution of reproductive barriers would have occurred prior to interruption of gene flow would be unusual but not unheard of. The same happens in any ring species in which the intermediates are lost.

With this admission, I'm curious why you still disagree with me? Perhaps it's a matter of perception?

Linnaean interpretation:
._
|_| Order
._
|_| Family
._
|_| Genus
..\
...\.Species
… ..\_.._.._.._
… ..|A||B||C||D|

The new species (D) gets its own box even if it descended directly from species C, which itself is a sister to species B, because B & C both descended from species A. Also, the higher taxons are equally fuzzy in that a species may be included or excluded from certain ones according to popular convention. Ducks may be considered related to geese, but both may be declared to be unrelated to ostriches. Snakes may be reptiles but not lizards. The words, "reptile" and "fish" are still used even though it they are both undefined and paraphyletic grades rather than actual taxons. Humans may be apes but not Old World monkeys. Apes may be monkeys, or humans may be apes, as long as apes are not also monkeys, -because humans just don't wanna be monkeys. Both humans and apes may be listed as separate groups within primates, but that classification also doesn't seem to mean anything the way "mammal" does. Basically, the Linnaean system is static, and can't adequate illustrate evolutionary relationships.

Cladistic interpretation:

......F.....P
...../...../
....C__G__H__R
__A/...\
..\.....J__K___N
...B.....|...\
.../\....L....M
..D..E.........

In this perspective, species M & N are different species from each other, but may or may not be different species from their common ancestor, in the stem of clade K. Regardless, they are both still within the same taxon as that ancestor. M & N are both still K. They're both still J, G, C, & A too, in every capacity except species, which isn't a different taxon so much as a new bud on the same branch. Similarly, H, J, K, L, M, N, P, & R are all G, and so will all of their descendants also be. Species F is a different species than its ancestor, but again, it is still in the same clade, and never changed its taxon. There was just another dimension added to it; because in that case, one species slowly evolved into a new verson (like a chronologically-isolated ring species) yet remained one continuously-interbreeding population all that time.

Fine and dandy, but that's a completely different system from what I was asking about. The question I had assumed the answer to was whether you agree it is possible to evolve out of the Linnaean taxon of "species".

Since it is a Linnaean taxon, then yes. But if you use 'secies' in a cladistic sense, then no. It really boils down to who's doing the taxonomy.

"Class Osteichthyes are the bony fish, a group paraphyletic to the land vertebrates, which are sometimes included. Most belong to the Actinopterygii. The others are called lobe-finned fish, and include lungfish and coelacanths. They are traditionally treated as a class of vertebrates, with subclasses Actinopterygii and Sarcopterygii, but newer schemes may divide them into several separate classes. The vast majority of fish are bony fish, and therefore belong to class Osteichthyes."
--TheFreeDictionary

So are you saying we are in both class Osteichthyes and class Mammalia?

Yes, because the mammalian ancestral body plan is based on heavily-calcified (bony) skeletons.