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Theofane
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If human beings really are apes, why is it so offensive to compare a person of the black race to an ape? Why is that so explosive?
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Once again, it's all about context. Racism sadly played a large part in the study of human evolution, with Africans (and sometimes Australian Aborigines) being at the bottom and Europeans being at the top. The argument bascially boiled down to ...Theofane said:If human beings really are apes, why is it so offensive to compare a person of the black race to an ape? Why is that so explosive?
MostlyLurking said:Because the issue really isn't a linguistic debate per se. It is a debate (and an emotive one at that) because it is about ORIGINS. So the scientists who work in origins fields DO MATTER in such a debate.
True, this is mostly a linguistic debate rather than a debate about evolution. But since this is taxonomy we're talking about, the organisms and the words we use to describe them can hardly be seperated. As sfs pointed out, "animal" has a proper taxonomical definition which "ape" does not.AnotherAtheist said:The linguistic side to the argument is based on a fallacy. "Ape", like many English words, has more than one meaning.
The easiest way to show this is to consider the word "animal". In any sort of biological/scientific usage, humans are animals. But there are dictionary definitions that reflect the usage where it is applied only non-human animals.
Noting that there is such a usage doesn't in any way justify the claim "humans are not animals" in the context of a discussion of evolution and evolutionary relationships.
Thank you for addressing the actual issue in the OP. I don't think your argument works, however. The problem with your analogy is two-fold. First, "animal" does have a scientific meaning, as designating members of the animal kingdom. In contrast, "ape" does not. It is simply not the case that "biologically, there is a clear definition" of ape. The family Hominoidea has a clear definition, but why are you trying to assign that definition to the word "ape"?
Second, the definition of "animal" that includes humans is widely known and readily accessible for almost anyone in these discussions. That's not true for the word "ape". "Ape" has historically never included humans, and in common usage (even among scientists) still does not. What's going on here is not competing definitions, but an attempt to change a definition in order to advance a point of view.
A better analogy would be to the statement, "Humans are fish", which also comes up in discussions about evolution sometimes.
That statement is not using a second definition of "fish" which includes humans;
"Humans are apes" used the same way, but I do have a big problem with claims that these actually represent what the words "fish" and "ape" mean in English. I also have no problem with stating, in the context of evolution, that humans are neither apes nor fish.
Technically no, and again the issue is a linguistic one.AnotherAtheist said:You can't deny that one meaning of "ape" is the whole superfamily which includes humans ... because in evolutionary and most biological contexts contexts, "apes" = "superfamily Hominoidea" and we are very solidly a member of that superfamily.
Let's see, how many ways can you be wrong in one sentence? 1) I didn't post the original quote. Do try to pay attention. 2) The original quote is from a noted anthropologist with expertise in human evolution; if you think he's trying to support a falsehood (I assume you mean the falsehood that humans are not descended from apes), well, you obviously aren't paying attention; 3) if you think I'm trying to use linguistic arguments to support that same falsehood, then the only charitable explanation I can think of is that you haven't read my posts. I have my own share of expertise in human evolution, and I really don't need to be lectured on the subject.You thank me for "addressing the actual issue in the OP". But, my main issue with your issue and your original quote is that it's a deliberate attempt to use linguistic arguments to support a falsehood.
No, we're not "clearly talking about evolutionary relationships" if the opening post in the thread states that we're talking about the common-language use of the word "ape", while explicitly confirming the truth of the standard phylogeny for humans.The word "ape" has different meanings in different contexts. As I said before, if we're discussing on a Creation and Evolution forum, and have a thread title "Humans Aren't Apes", then clearly we're talking about evolutionary relationships.
No, I'm trying to get science-oriented people to recognize that they don't control language, and that assigning a scientific meaning to a word does not make that meaning the "correct" one.Both you and the writer of the blog you linked to are trying to have your cake and eat it to. By that I mean that you want to argue that humans are not apes by choosing one linguistic meaning of the word "ape", while working in a context where the word has a meaning which makes your conclusion wrong.
Did not.The writer of the blog makes this even worse (though you referenced him)
The meaning of "ape" that includes humans might not be so widely known, but that is a difference of degree, not of fundamental logic.
One of those (WWF) does not use "ape" in the meaning you suggest. The others do indeed point to (what I would call) a growing use of "ape" to include humans, but note that in most cases the pages are specifically making a point of the categorization -- introducing it as something new, in order to change readers' viewpoint.Here's "ape" being used in the scientific manner:
Dawkins, R. (2005), The Ancestor's Tale (p/b ed.), London: Phoenix (Orion Books) "[a]ll apes except humans are hairy" (p. 99), "[a]mong the apes, gibbons are second only to humans" (p. 126).
More references: Humans are apes – ‘Great Apes’ - Australian Museum
The emergence of humans
Hominidae - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
WWF - Great Apes - Overview
That's just what I am denying. More precisely, I think the proposed meaning of "ape" is of very recent vintage, is not in wide-spread use, and almost always has to be made explicit when used. Which is to say, there is an attempt underway to change the meaning of "ape". It wouldn't surprise me if the new meaning takes hold, since words change meanings all the time, but at this point I don't see this as one of the standard meanings of "ape", and it's certainly notAnd so on. You can't deny that one meaning of "ape" is the whole superfamily which includes humans.
What difference does the taxonomic order make? Humans are Sarcopterygii, aka lobe-finned fishes.No, that doesn't work at all. Humans evolved from other creatures that evolved from other creatures, that evolved from fish. We are no longer fish, several taxa removed. However, we are in the family Hominoidea, or the apes. We are distant enough so that we are no longer fish. We are not distant enough that we are no longer apes. We are in the same phylum as fish as we are chordates. But, we are not in the same family as any fish. No are we in a family such as Actinopterygii, the ray finned fishes.
You're restating my argument, with the only difference being that you believe there is a widely used meaning of "ape" that includes humans. I doubt you'll find that meaning in any dictionary, nor is it standard in scientific use.It would be silly if it did, because there is no widely used meaning of the word "fish" which includes humans. We can only use "humans are X" when humans are a member of the group "X", such as "humans are animals", "humans are mammals", "humans are primates", "humans are apes", "humans are great apes". That makes sense because we are members of these groups. It doesn't make sense to say "humans are trees", "humans are bacteria", or "humans are fish" because we aren't members of those groups.
See above for data on the actual usage of "ape" in the recent scientific literature.Well you had better get used to it, because in evolutionary and most biological contexts contexts, "apes" = "superfamily Hominoidea" and we are very solidly a member of that superfamily. You might want to try to redefine the word "ape" to never include humans, but the word is used widely with this meaning.
Technically no, and again the issue is a linguistic one.
Terms such as "hominidae", "homininae" and "hominini" do not mean ape. They are variations of the phrase "human-like".
Indeed many of the words used in human taxonomy are used to describe how much other primates resemble us, rather than how much they share with each other. This is why the root of all these words is "Homo", the genus humans belong to.
This means if humans were descended from orangutans, then the terms "homininae" and "hominini" would not be part of our taxonomy - even though gorillas and chimpanzees are obviously apes. So sfs and John Hawks are right when they say there is no proper txonomical term for ape.
Nobody is denying that humans are descended from the great apes - so far everyone here is an evolutionist. I could be wrong, but "hominidae" does not have an "o" in it - although the term to describe members of this family (hominoids) does.AnotherAtheist said:Why are you going off on this tangent. And confusing things with misspellings We are a member of the superfamily Hominoidea. Do you deny this? We are a member of the family Homindae. Do you deny this?
No, I am not saying that humans are descended from orangutans. My point was that the taxonomical terms we use to describe the great apes are based partly on what human-like features they share, rather than what traits actually make them apes.AnotherAtheist said:Who is saying that human descended from orang-utans? If no-one is claiming this, why are you including statements such as "This means if humans were descended from orang-utans" in your post?
Let's see, how many ways can you be wrong in one sentence? 1) I didn't post the original quote. Do try to pay attention.
2) The original quote is from a noted anthropologist with expertise in human evolution; if you think he's trying to support a falsehood (I assume you mean the falsehood that humans are not descended from apes), well, you obviously aren't paying attention;
No, he's denying the quite common scientific use of "ape" to mean members of the superfamily hominoidea. Hence to claim that "humans are not apes". I gave a number of examples of this usage. Hence blanket claims that "humans are not apes" are no better than saying "humans are not animals". It does't work.
3) if you think I'm trying to use linguistic arguments to support that same falsehood, then the only charitable explanation I can think of is that you haven't read my posts. I have my own share of expertise in human evolution, and I really don't need to be lectured on the subject.
You created a "falsehood" that you assumed that I was querying. I wasn't dealing with that at all. So, you after saying that I had your argument wrong, have completely gotten my argument wrong.
No, we're not "clearly talking about evolutionary relationships" if the opening post in the thread states that we're talking about the common-language use of the word "ape", while explicitly confirming the truth of the standard phylogeny for humans.
But the context is the statement "humans are not apes". This doesn't work any better than "humans are not animals". That we have a common usage meaning of the term "animal" that excludes humans doesn't mean that we can then say that "humans are not animals". Because such a simplistic statement cannot work when humans are only excluded by some meanings of the word "animal". Say that on a Creation and Evolution forum, and it becomes even more wrong.
No, I'm trying to get science-oriented people to recognize that they don't control language, and that assigning a scientific meaning to a word does not make that meaning the "correct" one.
Nobody is claiming that a scientific meaning is the "correct" one, it depends on context. But the context of the blog and this forum makes the human-exluding meanings of "ape" and "animal" inappropriate in this context.
One of those (WWF) does not use "ape" in the meaning you suggest.
Opening sentence looks different. But that's not important because:
The others do indeed point to (what I would call) a growing use of "ape" to include humans, but note that in most cases the pages are specifically making a point of the categorization -- introducing it as something new, in order to change readers' viewpoint.
Yes, there's a growing use of "ape" to include humans. But when discussing evolution and human evolutionary relationships, having humans as a member of the "apes" and "great apes" is widespread.
Meanwhile, here are some actual uses of "ape" in the scientific literature, none using it to include humans:
How is this relevant? I never claimed that the word "ape" never includes humans. I said that there was a wide usage of the term to include humans, and pointed out the contexts where this was most common.
Note that most of these papers are considering humans and apes in an evolutionary context, and still do not treat "ape" as inclusive of humans. So I would say that that is hardly standard scientific usage.
Dawkin's book that was one of my references in a previous post uses both meanings of the word. This only goes to show that there are two meanings. And if you search more, there are even more meanings.
That's just what I am denying. More precisely, I think the proposed meaning of "ape" is of very recent vintage, is not in wide-spread use, and almost always has to be made explicit when used. Which is to say, there is an attempt underway to change the meaning of "ape". It wouldn't surprise me if the new meaning takes hold, since words change meanings all the time, but at this point I don't see this as one of the standard meanings of "ape", and it's certainly not
I don't think it's as recent as you think. I remember being taught decades ago about the ape family and that humans are apes. But consider the family Pongiadae is falling out of use because the creation of a family of "apes" that excludes humans is essentially bogus.
What difference does the taxonomic order make? Humans are Sarcopterygii, aka lobe-finned fishes.
Fair enough, I slipped up and used Actinopterygii instead, but my argument still holds. Our ancestors evolved from that group, but are no longer part of it.
You're restating my argument, with the only difference being that you believe there is a widely used meaning of "ape" that includes humans. I doubt you'll find that meaning in any dictionary, nor is it standard in scientific use.
See above for data on the actual usage of "ape" in the recent scientific literature.
It is used. When you say "standard", that could only occur if there is one meaning, and I've been very clear all along that there is more than one meaning.
Here is a reference:
Evolutionary Psychology of Spatial Representations in the Hominidae
Daniel B.M. Haun, Josep Call, Gabriele Janzen, Stephen C. Levinson
Current Biology - 5 September 2006 (Vol. 16, Issue 17, pp. 1736-1740)
This thread was started poorly as it was labelled with a title "Humans are not apes". If someone meant to argue that we should solely use "ape" to mean non-human Hominidae, then it should have been clearly titled and argued in that way.
However, along with the out-of-date Pongidae, the use of ape to exclude humans does not make sense in a biological/evolutionary context. So, as you say, the meaning of the word "ape" to include humans is growing, and this is a more accurate meaning in context. Given this, to claim that "humans are not apes" in a context of familial relationships and creation/evolution is not correct.
Science does not define the meaning of words for the general public. E.g. as I said, a tomato is a vegetable in the supermarket, but a fruit, specifically berry I believe, to botany. But science does refine the use of words in a scientific context. And if we're discussing things in a creation & evolution forum in 2012 when addressing the claim "Humans are not apes", then we need to consider what meanings we need to consider for that particular statement in this context. And it just does not work. No better than "humans are not animals".
I like giving my threads controversial titles.AnotherAtheist said:This thread was started poorly as it was labelled with a title "Humans are not apes". If someone meant to argue that we should solely use "ape" to mean non-human Hominidae, then it should have been clearly titled and argued in that way.
The reason I'm bringing this up is because, since this a linguistic debate rather than an evolutionary one, several people have pointed out that a name can describe both a group of ancestral primates and modern branchs of primate.
This means "monkey" can describe both the ancestors of apes and a branch of primate unrelated to modern apes. Chimps did not evolve from baboons, but they both evolved from a monkey-like ancestor.
In the same way, "ape" can be used to describe both the ancestors of humans, and a branch of primate unrelated to modern humans. Humans did not evolve from chimpanzees - humans and chimpanzees both evolved from an ape-like ancestor.
The problem here is that taxonomy techincally does not have a term for "ape". All it has are degrees of human-ness. Chimps are the most human-like, and so are assigned to hominini. Gorillas are less human-like and are assigned to homininae. Orangutans are even less human-like and are assigned to hominidae and so on and so on.
As such, we cannot really say "humans are apes" when we don't even have a proper term for what ape really means.
AnotherAtheist said:Which branch of primates can be called "apes" but are "unrelated to humans"?
You pretty much answered your own question there. Practically all branches of primates living today are not (directly) related to humans. Obviously humans did not evolve from modern chimpanzees.AnotherAtheist said:Again, language needs to be used carefully here. You say that "Orangutans are even less human-like and are assigned to hominae". But, they're Ponginae.
Ah - this is the crux of my argument. See, we have not officially found the last common ancestor of humans and chimps yet*. Part of the reason for this is that we have not found any chimpanzee fossils, so we have no idea what they looked like and what separated them from early hominins like Ardipithecus.AnotherAtheist said:And this "ape-like ancestor". Which ancestor are you talking about? If we're talking about an ancestor common to humans, chimps, and bonobos, but not to orangutans and gorillas, then how would this ancestor be "ape-like". Surely it would be an ape.
And I just noticed that post after my latest wall of text.AnotherAtheist said:Having posted those wall of text answers, I suspect that because of cumulative complexity and misunderstandings, that probably all of us remaining active posters; notedstrangeperson, sfs, and I, need to very carefully and concisely need to restate our current positions. In short sentences. Without confusing examples. Then we might have a chance of productive discussion.
If I had called this thread "What defines an ape?" would you have clicked it?madaz said:Perhaps this thread should be called
"What defines an ape?"
The current title of "Humans aren't apes" is not only provocative and incorrect, it is mischievous.
Originally Posted by AnotherAtheist
Which branch of primates can be called "apes" but are "unrelated to humans"?Originally Posted by AnotherAtheist
Again, language needs to be used carefully here. You say that "Orangutans are even less human-like and are assigned to hominae". But, they're Ponginae.
You pretty much answered your own question there. Practically all branches of primates living today are not (directly) related to humans. Obviously humans did not evolve from modern chimpanzees
Sorry I dropped out here -- I've been doing other things. As for a statement of my current position, I'll just quote what I wrote earlier:Having posted those wall of text answers, I suspect that because of cumulative complexity and misunderstandings, that probably all of us remaining active posters; notedstrangeperson, sfs, and I, need to very carefully and concisely need to restate our current positions. In short sentences. Without confusing examples. Then we might have a chance of productive discussion.
The only thing I'd add at this point is that what's true of most competent speakers of English also seems to be true of most English-speaking biologists, judging from the papers I looked at randomly. I also checked papers we've produced around here (meaning where I work), and found the same to be true. Of four papers I checked that might have referenced apes, one didn't use the word, and the other three all contrasted apes with humans. And these are not completely trivial papers or scientists, either. One was an important paper on human-chimpanzee speciation by David Reich and Nick Patterson (both also major contributors to recent work on the Neandertal and Denisovan genomes), one was another paper by David Reich (and me), and one was the paper describing the complete chimpanzee genome (first author Eric Lander, listed by Thompson Reuters as the most influential researcher in the world for the last two years). I doubt any of these people would be taken aback by describing humans as apes, but neither is it their natural vocabulary."Scientifically, it's perfectly clear that humans are members of a clade that otherwise consists of apes, and there's nothing wrong with using the sentence "Humans are apes" to state that fact. It's also perfectly clear that the word "ape" is not usually construed by most competent speakers of English to include humans, and so it is also fine to state, "Humans are not apes".