Illusions of Phylogeny

[lifepsyop]

Phylogeny makes use of shared characterstics. That is the whole point. If there were no shared characteristics, then phylogeny wouldn't work. I think it funny that you expect us to instead to use a diagram that you claim isn't even feasible.

Not sure what you're getting at here. I already know phylogenetic models use shared traits. Why do you think I started this thread? I'm simply pointing out how the illusion is sold to the public. They look at these nested hierarchies and assume it describes Common Descent when it's just abstract nested groupings.

No, what it shows is that evolution explains these nested hierarchies that were apparent even before evolution was accepted by biologists. That is the power of the theory at work. What does creationism explain?

Evolution doesn't explain it. Evolution accommodates it, as it could accommodate many different nested hierarchies. Evolution also predicts the breakdown of nested hierarchies through rapid loss of traits. It predicts, (accommodates) nearly anything.

No. If brown-eyes were a shared trait, then it would appropriate to use. Since it is not a shared trait, then it is not appropriate to use. This isn't rocket science.

This makes no sense.
How exactly is brown-eyes not a shared trait when millions of people share it?

I am not familiar with this example, but I am sure it is like the platypus's "bill." A platypus's bill may look similar to a bird's bill, but it is morphologically and developmentally completetely different. The similarities in this case are superficial, and thus quite correctly seen as an example of convergent evolution. If this skink had a true mammalian placenta, then you would have a valid point. We don't have such chimeras in the real world, however.

It's extremely similar to the mammalian placenta, actually.

Blackburn 2012:

In the viviparous lizard Trachylepis ivensi (Scincidae) of central Africa, ...shows that this species has evolved an extraordinary placental pattern long thought to be confined to mammals, in which fetal tissues invade the uterine lining to contact maternal blood vessels. The vestigial shell membrane disappears very early in development, allowing the egg to absorb uterine secretions.... T. ivensi represents a new extreme in placental specializations of reptiles, and is the most striking case of convergence on the developmental features of viviparous mammals known.

Invasive implantation and intimate placental associations in a placentotrophic african lizard, Trachylepis ivensi (scincidae) - Blackburn - 2011 - Journal of Morphology - Wiley Online Library

If a mammal were found with something that was superficially like a feather, then that would be considered convergent, yes. If a mammal were found with feathers just like a bird, then you are wrong. Such an occurance would be a real problem for the theory.

Nope. It would be named convergent evolution, no doubt about it. You only say otherwise because it seems safe to say so at this point. But we have discovered countless incredibly complex features that have been chalked up to convergent evolution. I've seen biologists admit that they would in fact assume true feathers found on mammals is convergent.

Evolution predicts the possibility that mammals could convergently evolve true feathers under similar selection pressures as dinosaurs. And there is no rule of Evolution that you can point out that says otherwise.

One of the triumphs of the theory is that it explains what we find in the fossil record very well. I used the example earlier of jawless fish first appearing before jawed fish, and how that fits in well with the hiearchy.

So? If jawed fish appeared before jawless fish, evolution would just say the ancestors of jawed fishes are missing, and jawless fish are a reversal, or even a primitive group that evolved contemporaneously with jawed fishes, but didn't show up in the record till afterwards.

You really think Evolution is not well insulated by these things? Jawed before jawless poses absolutely no problem whatsoever and is easily rescued by ad-hoc devices.

It would.

No, it wouldn't. Evolution can accommodate many different character arrangements.

 

[Black Akuma]

Can you guys make your own thread to spam these irrelevancies?

Typically, I would, but you're kind of a jerk, so...no

 

[Split Rock]

Not sure what you're getting at here. I already know phylogenetic models use shared traits. Why do you think I started this thread? I'm simply pointing out how the illusion is sold to the public. They look at these nested hierarchies and assume it describes Common Descent when it's just abstract nested groupings.

There is nothing abstract about groups which all share traits in common. Common descent explains why they share these traits, but do not share many other traits with other such groups.

Evolution doesn't explain it. Evolution accommodates it, as it could accommodate many different nested hierarchies. Evolution also predicts the breakdown of nested hierarchies through rapid loss of traits. It predicts, (accommodates) nearly anything.

No, evolution does not predict the breakdown of nested hierarchies through rapid poss of traits. We are still apes, primates, mammals, vertebrates, animals, and eukaryotes.

This makes no sense.
How exactly is brown-eyes not a shared trait when millions of people share it?

It is not shared by the entire group you mentioned. Therefore, it is not a shared trait.

It's extremely similar to the mammalian placenta, actually.

Blackburn 2012:

In the viviparous lizard Trachylepis ivensi (Scincidae) of central Africa, ...shows that this species has evolved an extraordinary placental pattern long thought to be confined to mammals, in which fetal tissues invade the uterine lining to contact maternal blood vessels. The vestigial shell membrane disappears very early in development, allowing the egg to absorb uterine secretions.... T. ivensi represents a new extreme in placental specializations of reptiles, and is the most striking case of convergence on the developmental features of viviparous mammals known.

Invasive implantation and intimate placental associations in a placentotrophic african lizard, Trachylepis ivensi (scincidae) - Blackburn - 2011 - Journal of Morphology - Wiley Online Library

Very interesting... but it is still not a mammalian placenta. You also are ignoring how very rare this adaptation is. You are using the exception to try and disprove the rule.

Nope. It would be named convergent evolution, no doubt about it. You only say otherwise because it seems safe to say so at this point. But we have discovered countless incredibly complex features that have been chalked up to convergent evolution. I've seen biologists admit that they would in fact assume true feathers found on mammals is convergent.

I disagree.

Evolution predicts the possibility that mammals could convergently evolve true feathers under similar selection pressures as dinosaurs. And there is no rule of Evolution that you can point out that says otherwise.

They could evolve something very similar to feathers, but they would not be the same. At the very least, it would be very very unlikely.

You continue to ignore the fact that the rarity of exceptions supports common descent. The world could be filled with chimeras of all types... pegasus, minotaurs, hippographs, flying whales, hairy toads ... but it isn't. Why is that?

So? If jawed fish appeared before jawless fish, evolution would just say the ancestors of jawed fishes are missing, and jawless fish are a reversal, or even a primitive group that evolved contemporaneously with jawed fishes, but didn't show up in the record till afterwards.

But that isn't the case, is it? We find jawless fish first, then fish with jaws, then bony fish with jaws, then fishapods, then tetrapods, etc. All just a big coincidence, I suppose? Again, please explain how creationism does a better job of explaining what we find.

You really think Evolution is not well insulated by these things? Jawed before jawless poses absolutely no problem whatsoever and is easily rescued by ad-hoc devices.

It is certainly possible for the ancestors of jawed fish to be missing from the record. Or some other ancestor. It is also possible for something very like jaws to evolve more than once. There are always exceptions and incomplete findings. You guys are all about pointing them out. What you are convieniently ignoring is that the preponderance of the evidence supports the conclusion of common decent.

No, it wouldn't. Evolution can accommodate many different character arrangements.

Nice that you cut off most of what I wrote there.

 

[Loudmouth]

What on earth are you talking about? "Invertebrates" and "reptiles" are groupings rejected by evolutionary biologists, who often object to their use.

I have always found the "Tree of Life Web Project" to be a very well run and very accessible tool for discussing cladistics with the general public. Here is a link to the Amniota page:

Amniota

 

[Loudmouth]

Here are some images following the same above sequence, with more data added. (Showing the bottom species first)

Does it change your perception of this "gradual" transition?

No, it doesn't change my perception. If we were to put them on the same scale then we would have to make the pages immensely large in order to see the smaller features. It makes sense to show them in relative terms. Why do you find this to be such a problem?

Also, overall size can be variable in any lineage, and even variable within a single population. Why do you think it is important?

 

[Loudmouth]

As explained in the OP, I am elucidating the way in which Evolution is sold to the general public, with misleading language and imagery.

Pot, meet kettle.

 

[Loudmouth]

Yep, it's hard to avoid studying something you've defined as 'change over time'.

Maybe if your theory wasn't built on total equivocation you wouldn't be fooling yourselves into thinking every time a mutation occurs that its evidence that a human and a snail share a common ancestor.

Why would you have a problem with snails and humans sharing a common ancestor? Our common ancestor was a bilaterian. We are bilaterians. The snail is a bilaterian. It is just bilaterians turning into bilaterians. That's microevolution, isn't it?

 

[Loudmouth]

Here is a nice little challenge for lifepsyop. The whole point is that without evolution, life wouldn't fall into a single, objective phylogeny to begin with.

To help illustrate this point, I would like to see lifepsyop, or anyone for that matter, demonstrate that the 52 standard playing cards fall into a single, objective phylogeny using shared characteristics.

 

[Davian]

 

[lifepsyop]

There is nothing abstract about groups which all share traits in common.

It is abstract, contrary to the way in which it claims to identify an ancestral lineage. For example, there is no such thing as the "placental mammal" ancestral group that all placental mammals are descended from. That data does not exist. That lineage only exists as an abstract concept.

Common descent explains why they share these traits, but do not share many other traits with other such groups.

No it doesn't. Common descent accommodates the nested groupings. It doesn't predict or explain them.

No, evolution does not predict the breakdown of nested hierarchies through rapid poss of traits. We are still apes, primates, mammals, vertebrates, animals, and eukaryotes.

Okay, take a look at our supposed primitive ancestors. We've lost scales, fins, egg-laying ability, ectothermy, ability to breathe underwater, and a host of other traits.

A more subtle example is Turtles. Turtles have been classified as anapsids, meaning they lack a temporal fenestrae (hole in the back of their skull) Phylogeneticists are now trying to explain turtle skull characteristics as reversions (loss of fenestrae) from Diapsid ancestors. (as opposed to being part of their own Anapsid lineage)

So when evolutionists need to break the nested hierarchy and get something into a certain group, they can just say the conflict is due to a loss of a trait. The same way they can explain the appearance of a conflicting trait as convergence, as is routinely invoked in morphology.

It is not shared by the entire group you mentioned. Therefore, it is not a shared trait.

If it's shared, it's shared. If it's not shared, then it's not shared? Is this what you're trying to say?

Very interesting... but it is still not a mammalian placenta. You also are ignoring how very rare this adaptation is. You are using the exception to try and disprove the rule.

If it was a mammalian placenta then it would be a mammal. It's a mammalian-like placenta found in a lizard. This is why the researchers were shocked to discover it. This is a "chimeric" trait just like you were describing before. Only when these chimeras appear in real life, you suddenly hallucinate them as something evolution did.

They could evolve something very similar to feathers, but they would not be the same. At the very least, it would be very very unlikely.

Evolution is very very unlikely. And all you're doing is just saying mammalian feathers couldn't evolve, when you can provide no 'rule' of evolution that says it can't. If birds can evolve feathers, then so can mammals under the right selection pressures.

The theory makes no real predictions. It doesn't predict mammals or birds should evolve at all, much less what traits should or shouldn't evolve.

You continue to ignore the fact that the rarity of exceptions supports common descent. The world could be filled with chimeras of all types... pegasus, minotaurs, hippographs, flying whales, hairy toads ... but it isn't. Why is that?

How is a cartoon-ish imagination of "what should exist if evolution's not true" supposed to be an argument? It's no different than me asserting that if Evolution is true, whales should have convergently evolved flight. It's silly.

But that isn't the case, is it? We find jawless fish first, then fish with jaws, then bony fish with jaws, then fishapods, then tetrapods, etc. All just a big coincidence, I suppose? Again, please explain how creationism does a better job of explaining what we find.

To be a "coincidence", Evolution would have to predict it first. It doesn't.
Why do tetrapods need jaws? They don't. That's just what we find and Evolution accommodates it, while predicting nothing.

We find advanced tetrapod trackways with digit impressions 20 MYA earlier than fishapods in the fossil record. Does it matter? No, Evolution accommodates whatever it needs to.

What you are convieniently ignoring is that the preponderance of the evidence supports the conclusion of common decent.

There is no preponderance. The evidence for Evolution is mostly the assumption that it happened.

 

[lifepsyop]

Why would you have a problem with snails and humans sharing a common ancestor?

I have no real problem with it, it's just obviously not true. Culled genetic accidents can't build snails or humans and everyone knows it. This is just darwinian mysticism.

The truth is that Man was created by God.

 

[StormanNorman]

I have no real problem with it, it's just obviously not true. Culled genetic accidents can't build snails or humans and everyone knows it. This is just darwinian mysticism.

The truth is that Man was created by God.

Well, it's definitely a nicer story ... not sure I would call it truth, however .... maybe your truth, I guess.

 

[Loudmouth]

I have no real problem with it, it's just obviously not true.

Based on what evidence? We are bilaterians. Snails are bilaterians. Our common ancestor was a bilaterian. It is just bilaterians changing into bilaterians. That is microevolution, is it not?

Culled genetic accidents can't build snails or humans and everyone knows it.

Why can't it?

The truth is that Man was created by God.

Based on what evidence?

Instead of bare assertions, perhaps you should present some evidence.

 

[Strathos]

I have no real problem with it, it's just obviously not true. Culled genetic accidents can't build snails or humans and everyone knows it. This is just darwinian mysticism.

The truth is that Man was created by God.

God could not have created man via the process of evolution?

 

[Justatruthseeker]

So your paper is accepted by peer review and you get continued funding and tenure? Just a guess.....

Yes, those with tenure must write so many papers, even if they have nothing to say at all or have to make up imaginary linkages to perpetuate a false theory.

The thing about publishing is that you only see the one single data set that seems to conform, while you never see the 1000 data sets that didn't conform in that same area, and therefore no papers were written about those.

One should be required to publish on failed experiments as well, so the overall story will be told, and people do not waste money repeating experiments that have already shown to be failures and are contrary to the prevailing theory. In 99% of the cases if an experiments goes against theory, it will never be heard of, only the 1% are ever heard, wich is not a picture of the true nature of the events, but a limited view.

 

[Justatruthseeker]

The goal of this thread is to help pull back the curtain a little bit on the language and imagery used to sell the illusion of phylogeny to the public.

Phylogeny refers to the supposed evolutionary relationships among all living things.


NESTED GROUPS / HIERARCHIES:

This is a method of creating "Groups" and disguising them as ancestral lineages in order to pretend that they say something about the origins of certain types of organisms.

For example, in the image below from TalkOrigins:

We can say that an ancestral lineage of Vertebrates gave rise to a lineage of animals with Jaws, which gave rise to a lineage with Digits, which grave rise to the lineage of Amniotes, which gave rise to the lineage of animals with Hair and Endothermy, which gave rise to the lineage with a Placenta, which ultimately gave rise to the lineage of Humans.

It seems I have said a great deal about the Human's evolutionary past. But in fact, all I have done is given a self-fulfilling definition of how a Human is defined and classified. A Human is an endothermic placental with hair, classified as an amniote, with digits, jaws, and vertebrae. A Human is all of these things, by definition. But I have not said anything about actual lineages or ancestors. The supposed "Ancestors" are only conceptual nested groups.

Furthermore, a "Group" does not reproduce. An "Amniote Group" can not give rise to a "Placental Group". The group is only a simplified abstract idea. The actual species that fall within these groups are incredibly physiologically diverse. By referring to their supposed ancestors as "Groups", it becomes a way of deleting diversity. Focusing only on simple Groups nested within Groups helps sell the illusion that actual ancestral lineages are being identified, when they only exist as an abstract idea.

The abstract character or group creates an imaginary data point. The group: "Placenta" creates an imaginary ancestral lineage of "placental mammals", that all other placental mammals have descended from over time. The data point is imaginary, yet it seems as if an actual ancestral lineage of placental mammals has been identified.

In a similar way, the abstract character or group also deletes data, or deletes diversity. Placental mammals consist of an incredibly diverse array of real animals: (mice,dogs,rabbits,elephants,giraffes,apes,bears,seals,bats, etc. etc.) Yet by simply naming the Group "Placental Mammals", it provides the illusion that I have identified an ancestral lineage to all of these animals, while ignoring the incredible diversity found between individual types of placental mammals. I have stripped all of the information that would confound my imaginary lineage.

Nested Groups both create imaginary data, and delete real data, in order to help sell the illusion of phylogeny.

Because without this imaginary linkage, they would be left with nothing but diversity, as modern DNA testing has shown to be the case. It is no longer a upward branching tree from which all life sprang, but a forest of individual trees with sideways branching. Kind after kind and the variation capable within each kind.

Let the evolutionary double-talk begin.

 

[Loudmouth]

Yes, those with tenure must write so many papers, even if they have nothing to say at all or have to make up imaginary linkages to perpetuate a false theory.

The thing about publishing is that you only see the one single data set that seems to conform, while you never see the 1000 data sets that didn't conform in that same area, and therefore no papers were written about those.

Show us these 1,000's of other data sets.

 

[Loudmouth]

Because without this imaginary linkage, they would be left with nothing but diversity, as modern DNA testing has shown to be the case. It is no longer a upward branching tree from which all life sprang, but a forest of individual trees with sideways branching. Kind after kind.

Let the evolutionary double-talk begin.

Then show us a primate that isn't a mammal. If you think the tree is wrong, then show it is wrong.

 

[lifepsyop]

Because without this imaginary linkage, they would be left with nothing but diversity, as modern DNA testing has shown to be the case. It is no longer a upward branching tree from which all life sprang, but a forest of individual trees with sideways branching. Kind after kind and the variation capable within each kind.

This why abstract groups must be used in general. There is no actual ancestral data and never has been. So we get these fantasy situations where the placenta evolved from the amniote. Or the jaws evolved from the lack of jaws. However it provides plenty of 'plot-points' for telling a story to an unwitting public.

 

[lifepsyop]

Then show us a primate that isn't a mammal. If you think the tree is wrong, then show it is wrong.

Did you even think about this before you posted it? This challenge is non-sensical. If something wasn't a mammal, then it would be classified as a non-mammal, and placed in a different nested group.