Lesson in Cladistics: Playing Cards

[Astridhere]

Oh My!

Yep, it's a scream. A good analogy though, they are all playing games by different names.

 

[Astridhere]

The sensible choice is to group cards by what they share, not by how they differ.



Even if we go by shared features, there is no single feature that "makes sense" for playing cards. What features you pick end up being arbitrary for the most part. We could organize by suit or rank for the first division. Either makes as much sense as color. This is one of the features of designed things. You can group them based on shared features, but there is no single cladistic model that is better than another, and you can find many ways to organize separately designed things.

"Although it is trivial to classify anything subjectively in a hierarchical manner, only certain things can be classified objectively in a consistent, unique nested hierarchy. The difference drawn here between "subjective" and "objective" is crucial and requires some elaboration, and it is best illustrated by example. Different models of cars certainly could be classified hierarchically—perhaps one could classify cars first by color, then within each color by number of wheels, then within each wheel number by manufacturer, etc. However, another individual may classify the same cars first by manufacturer, then by size, then by year, then by color, etc. The particular classification scheme chosen for the cars is subjective. In contrast, human languages, which have common ancestors and are derived by descent with modification, generally can be classified in objective nested hierarchies (Pei 1949; Ringe 1999). Nobody would reasonably argue that Spanish should be categorized with German instead of with Portugese."
29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: Part 1

It seems that you are saying that you are unable to support your arbitrary classifications. Are you hoping that creationists can do better?

You can produce any old thing you want. The point is that if you can so easily come up with 2 different nested hierarchies for the whale lineage then you have no credibility. The differences are due to very fragile insertion values. Add, move or take away one fossil, use another assumptive outgroup, change what your measuring, and woopie daisy it all changes. It is simply not credible and most certianly not robust enough to be called evidence of anything more than messing around with algorithms.

It is all based on assumptions of distance and common ancestry. Your asumptions of messes like Indohyus are insertion values as should the new basilosaurus be. As you saw in the research article Indohyus is on the outer with a simple increase in error field. The line up changed at the wave of a hand. It is a ridiculous way of trying to gain verifiable information. I went looking for a straight out comparison of chimp/orang/gorilla dna. I couldn't find it. It is all in terms of evolutionary distances. This is the brainchild of evolutionary theory. Ignore that which may prove to be uncomfortable.

I can understand that evos need to do this. After all you are trying to establish bacteria to man. However threads like this sound as if you evos think you have some magic that is robust and irrefuteable. That is not the case.

You can have monophyly's within monophyly's depending on what you look at. They mean nothing. It is in the deep rooting that we have a difference in opinion and this is understandably and not coincidently where your nested hierarchies start to fall part.

In other words, Loudmouth, you are not going to be giving a lesson in cladistics to anyone because your very well credentialed researchers appear to be confused at present.

 

[AV1611VET]

Yep, it's a scream. A good analogy though, they are all playing games by different names.

When Hoyle shows up, it's all over.

 

[metherion]

I think I'm seeing what you're saying, Loudmouth. Even if you do try to divvy up by differences, there have to be similarities between the things that are divvied up, and at least some of the divvied objects have to share something, or they wouldn't stay in the same group, it would just instantly split into everything for itself, by itself.

Metherion

 

[Astridhere]

When Hoyle shows up, it's all over.

Maybe Loudmouth should use Tarrot cards. They have similar predictive ability!

The magician could be Darwin. Mankind could be the Court cards. Anything with a comparative 80% genetic difference in protein expression or more doesn't make into the court with us and gets to be a minor card and a non human animal.

DNA sequence and comparative analysis of chimpanzee c... [Nature. 2004] - PubMed - NCBI


Ardi can be the Fool because she is not sure whether she is a human, chimp or bonobo it seems.

Bonobos Join Chimps as Closest Human Relatives - ScienceNOW
A Recent Split of Humans and Chimps? - ScienceNOW

The Devil can represent modern research that sticks its' pitchfork into nested hierarchies all the time.

 

[Loudmouth]

I think I'm seeing what you're saying, Loudmouth. Even if you do try to divvy up by differences, there have to be similarities between the things that are divvied up, and at least some of the divvied objects have to share something, or they wouldn't stay in the same group, it would just instantly split into everything for itself, by itself.

Metherion

Exactly.

 

[Loudmouth]

Maybe Loudmouth should use Tarrot cards. They have similar predictive ability!

The magician could be Darwin. Mankind could be the Court cards. Anything with a comparative 80% genetic difference in protein expression or more doesn't make into the court with us and gets to be a minor card and a non human animal.

DNA sequence and comparative analysis of chimpanzee c... [Nature. 2004] - PubMed - NCBI


Ardi can be the Fool because she is not sure whether she is a human, chimp or bonobo it seems.

Bonobos Join Chimps as Closest Human Relatives - ScienceNOW
A Recent Split of Humans and Chimps? - ScienceNOW

The Devil can represent modern research that sticks its' pitchfork into nested hierarchies all the time.

Do you have anything to say on the actual topic?

 

[Loudmouth]

It seems that you are saying that you are unable to support your arbitrary classifications.

I wasn't trying ot support any specific hierarchy where it concerns cards, which is the topic of the thread.

In other words, Loudmouth, you are not going to be giving a lesson in cladistics to anyone because your very well credentialed researchers appear to be confused at present.

Sorry, but your credibility is zero. You could at least try to stay on topic, but I somehow doubt that is going to happen.

 

[juvenissun]

I am saying that there is no such example. That is what I am trying to illustrate with the cards.

That is very funny.

Classification is always possible. You are still not waking up.

Classify by difference, what does the difference mean? You can certainly use an example to clarify that. Is the heart 4 "different" from the club 4? Is that an example of the difference?

 

[Loudmouth]

Classification is always possible. You are still not waking up.

Where did I say it wasn't?

Classify by difference, what does the difference mean?

That is what I was asking creationists who claim that they organize species into groups based on differences. I just shifted the discussion to playing cards to get rid of the baggage that comes with discussing evolution.

Is the heart 4 "different" from the club 4? Is that an example of the difference?

Again, I am asking creationists how they do it. I am on the record stating that you need to group things based on similarities, not differences.

 

[Astridhere]

I wasn't trying ot support any specific hierarchy where it concerns cards, which is the topic of the thread.



Sorry, but your credibility is zero. You could at least try to stay on topic, but I somehow doubt that is going to happen.

Oh excuse me all you evos did was head for the hills on that topic.

I have a few research papers that say evolutionists ability to determine nested hierarchies is about as good as Tarrot cards. Not only are there different views that produce the flavour of the month you are ignoring a third alternative. They could all be wrong!

You did not choose which nested whale hierarchy you support. Which of the views are the better based on what? Guesswork. Indohyus for a start is a mess. What on earth could possess your researchers to use this vague and ridiculous mosaic.

Naturally, not everyone is convinced. A professor of functional anatomy and evolution at Johns Hopkins University, Kenneth Rose, told the Associated Press that Thewissen and his colleagues had not provided enough evidence to merit the conclusions drawn about Indohyus. He questioned the use of a composite skeleton and said that the ear bone thickness was difficult to judge based on a single specimen. Rose also noted that much of the work was based on the animal's teeth, the remains of which are poorly preserved.
Miniature Swimming Deer: Missing Link between Whales and Land Mammals Found - SPIEGEL ONLINE

PLoS ONE: Relationships of Cetacea (Artiodactyla) Among Mammals: Increased Taxon Sampling Alters Interpretations of Key Fossils and Character Evolution


Whatever you say can only be arbitrary. The underlying assumption is some sort of ancestry based on this or that. The fact that any change in insertion value produces different connections demonstrates clearly to the truly scientific mind that there is nothing more than circular reasoning going on here.

So I'd say your nested hierarchies credibiliy is zero as is your ability to demonstrate the cladistics going on here with cards or anything else.

 

[Loudmouth]

Oh excuse me all you evos did was head for the hills on that topic.

I have a few research papers that say evolutionists ability to determine nested hierarchies is about as good as Tarrot cards. Not only are there different views that produce the flavour of the month you are ignoring a third alternative. They could all be wrong!

So you can't group cards by their color? Really? Please explain.

 

[AV1611VET]

I am on the record stating that you need to group things based on similarities, not differences.

QV please:

As an illustration of how cladistics works (or doesn't work in this case) I would like to challenge a creationist to put playing cards into categories based on the differences between the cards.

 

[Loudmouth]

QV please:

What does that even mean?

 

[OllieFranz]

QV please:

There is no contradiction. The point Loudmouth has been making from the start (remember he does not believe in Special Creation) is that attempts to base categories on differences are bound to fail.

Personally I'm not as certain of that assumption. If, as Metherion did, someone considers differences as the flip side of similarities, it is possible.

The real problem is that Creationists have by fiat declared some differences to be fundamental, and base their claim that these differences require separate (special) creation. But they give no evidence for this claim but their interpretation of Genesis 1. And even that does not give any way to determine which specific differences are the crucial ones. So there is no way to definitively separate today's animals into their respective kinds.

Evolutionists do not have this problem. They freely admit that the "root: of a clade is chosen relatively. Any clade can be broken into two clades by dropping the common ancestor. Any two neighboring clades can be combined into one clade by adding the common ancestor. There are no definitive, separate "kinds."

 

[Astridhere]

So you can't group cards by their color? Really? Please explain.

Loudmouth do your really think this sort of foolery is going to get you anywhere. We are talking about much more than colour.

You are exposing your lack of understanding and trying to set an obvious bait here.

You have already been exposed. A poster, Juevenissun I think, has already asked for a demo. Please demonstrate with a taxon for us. How would you arrange your cards for whales or birds or Carnivora that is also contested and contradictory. After all, you reckon you can teach us all a lesson. Off you go!

Your bluff will be called if you can't.

 

[Astridhere]

There is no contradiction. The point Loudmouth has been making from the start (remember he does not believe in Special Creation) is that attempts to base categories on differences are bound to fail.

Personally I'm not as certain of that assumption. If, as Metherion did, someone considers differences as the flip side of similarities, it is possible.

The real problem is that Creationists have by fiat declared some differences to be fundamental, and base their claim that these differences require separate (special) creation. But they give no evidence for this claim but their interpretation of Genesis 1. And even that does not give any way to determine which specific differences are the crucial ones. So there is no way to definitively separate today's animals into their respective kinds.

I only have one story to back you do not have a story and make it up as you go along. Therefore your theories unfalsifiable unless you find a precambrian rabbit. Mine are much more testable.

Yes there is evidence of my creationist claims. How many times do I need to repeat them. You do not have to like my interpretation of empirical evidence but it remains as robust as yours, being modern bird feet on an undiscovered theropod. Theropods are now being challenged as being a bird ancestor at all. There are modern bird footprints dated to 212mya which is over half way to the Devonian. That is the sort of thing I am looking for. It is there as my support regardless of your ignoring it.

So my roots would go to your sub/family ranks that you lot have already worked out and then back to the Devonian via a creature you have placed modern bird feet on that is actually a modern bird with a reversed hallux.

It is evolutionists that came up with this signature for modern birds then have to hand waved it away because it does not align with your current theory. Hence you get theropods with modern bird feet.

So I will take a giant leap for a future prediction in a relatively new field. I will speculate that the differences between kinds is in gene expression. I will speculate that various kinds will be able to be separated by qualitative research into species comparison which is a new field. So far I have only seen such work on man and chimps. There is an 83% difference in expression.

Evolutionists do not have this problem. They freely admit that the "root: of a clade is chosen relatively. Any clade can be broken into two clades by dropping the common ancestor. Any two neighboring clades can be combined into one clade by adding the common ancestor. There are no definitive, separate "kinds."

Evolutionists have bigger problems. As you have no fixed stories to support and you can make it up as it goes along. Not science. So basically you are admitting that all the rhetoric about nested hierarchies is based on rubbish. Great! It is about time.

We have already said that the roots to the families you have already grouped go back to the same kinds in the mess you call an order.

So in other words your nested hierarchies are arbitrary depending on whatever. Hence you have no evidence that there is any root at all past the family rank that is dissimilar to the descendants. You have no evidence at all that there is any root back past birds that links into dinosaurs.

These results show that Theropoda as presently constituted may not be monophyletic and that the verificationist approach of the BMT literature may be producing misleading studies on the origin of birds.
http://www.bio.fsu.edu/James/Ornithological%20Monographs%202009.pdf​

The weight of the evidence is now suggesting that not only did birds not descend from dinosaurs, Ruben said, but that some species now believed to be dinosaurs may have descended from birds.
Bird-from-dinosaur theory of evolution challenged: Was it the other way around?


So each kind is determined by the suite of traits applicable. After all your hierarchies are not going to help out where you cannot retrieve DNA. You are stuck with guesswork the same as me. How much effort is it worth spending time and money on vague single bones?

Birds have a reversed hallux and feathers for a simplified example and dinosaurs do not have both traits. Some say dinos had feathers others not now, but they do not have both therefore they are not of the bird kind either. Hence birds and dinos/theropods/whatever flavour of the month are 2 different kinds, birds and Archaeopteryx are also 2 different kinds.

Category:Subfamilies of birds - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So your cards, however you wish to arrange them, would root/start in the Devonian with many varieties of the bird kind initially created. These would run through the bird that left the modern bird footprints, that would represent one of the variations then come down to the range we see today as basically classified into sub/family. Arch did not have avian feet and therefore is not a bird. Arch is of a kind that went extinct. Theropods do not have a reversed hallux either so they are not of the bird kind.

I may not have mountains of articles to present. However on the back of your hierarchical messes I'd say you have 150 years of nonsense and falsifications and therefore don't really have much of substance anyway.

Given the state of your nested hierarchies for birds I'd say you have no evidence, biased or not, to refute me at present.

The most Loudmouth could do is try to turn a deck of cards into a science. That is why I suggested he use Tarrot that has a similar predictive ability to TOE.


Now I want Loudmouth to give us a demo of how he knows birds are in the same clade as a dinosaur of his choice? He will be able to do this because he knows all about how your researchers group into sub/family and root into whatever, doesn't he?

 

[juvenissun]

Where did I say it wasn't?



That is what I was asking creationists who claim that they organize species into groups based on differences. I just shifted the discussion to playing cards to get rid of the baggage that comes with discussing evolution.



Again, I am asking creationists how they do it. I am on the record stating that you need to group things based on similarities, not differences.

Do what?

My advice to you is to quit this nonsense thread.

 

[Loudmouth]

Loudmouth do your really think this sort of foolery is going to get you anywhere. We are talking about much more than colour.

That is true. We are also talking about rank and suit. If you don't like cards as an example then why are you posting in this thread? Why do you feel the need to troll?

How would you arrange your cards for whales or birds or Carnivora that is also contested and contradictory.

Those are not cards.

 

[OllieFranz]

I only have one story to back you do not have a story and make it up as you go along. Therefore your theories unfalsifiable unless you find a precambrian rabbit. Mine are much more testable.

My theories? What theories would that be? I have espoused no theories, either in this thread or in the one that was recently closed.

I have compared Creationist theories with the Evolutionary Model, and pointed out that the Baraminology model of Special Creation, as you explain it, is not science. It could be science if more attention was given to providing evidence for its claims. It is possible that some Creationists have provided such evidence, but I have not found where they have. In this thread and in the previous thread we have mainly had your explanations, which are light on the evidence.

But even if baraminology is not science, I have not proved, or attempted to prove it false (though I may choose to attempt to do so once I have your evidence to examine). Simply showing that there are flaws in your explanations particularly explanations of minor details -- does not discredit the discipline as a whole.

Likewise, your whole approach to discrediting the Evolutionary Model can never discredit the EM as a whole, because you are exclusively focused on those same minor details.

But, while my criticism cannot on its own discredit baraminology, it still stands. I can find baraminologists who claim that Cats and Great Cats are two different kinds. I can find baraminologists who claim all felines, small, great, and sabre-toothed are a single kind, and you have claimed that there are (well, "were" because all sabre-tooths are extinct) two feline kinds. If the differences between kinds is fundamental can you point to what these fundamental differences are between a sabre-tooth and aq modern cat (or great cat), or explain why some baraminologists don't find these differences to be fundamental? Or can you tell me why the even greater differences between small cats and great cats are not fundamental, and why those baraminologists who believe they are two different kinds are wrong?

Arbitrarily choosing a point on a relativistic sliding scale for the purpose of making comparisons is not random, but calculated, and the comparisons made are (or can be) good science. Evolutionists have no need to apologize or feel shame for choosing the points they do. On the other hand, insisting, as baraminologists do, that those points are not arbitrary but absolutely fundamental requires evidence of their necessity. Evidence I have not seen and have not been able to turn up. Evidence promised by you, but never delivered.