On 29-12-2011 3:21, Cousin Ricky wrote:
> andrel<byt### [at] gmailcom>  wrote:
>>   monkeys still are not a clade as
>> the humans have to be left out.
>
> Why should humans be left out?  Because someone's religion says so?

in fact there is no religion that says explicitly so. simply because 
there was no reason to say anything about it at the time.
what e.g. the bible says is (KJV) 'So God created man in his own image, 
in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.' 
from this you can deduce that man was created and did not evolve from 
anything else. it does not say that man is not a monkey however. in 
genesis several groups of animals are named e.g. cattle, fish, and 
whales. if everything is created independently you can not group several 
species together. otoh if you are allowed to do that there is no reason 
not to group man with e.g. the mammals. tertium non datur.

> Because we don't like being monkeys?

some people don't.

> In everyday speech, it's fine to set humans apart from monkeys.  We do the same
> thing when we talk about "humans and animals."  However, in scientific contexts,
> there is no point to it.

there is a very good reason. it is called 'tradition'.

>> this sort of things happen more often when names are used that date back
>> to when we did not know yet how the genetic relationships were. we have
>> it e.g. where birds are dinosaurs, dinosaurs (apart from birds) are
>> reptiles but birds are not reptiles.
>
> Mammals are also descended from ancient reptiles.

no

> The biological community is
> going to have to decide what they want to do with the term "reptile."

they did, although their definitions change over time.

> And
> "fish."  And perhaps "amphibian," although I haven't studied that term.
>
> P.S. The bubbles in my Venn diagram show lay usage, not scientific.  That's why
> humans aren't in any of the bubbles.  The image as a whole was intended to lay
> bare how silly it is to set our species apart from other primates in light of
> today's knowledge.
>


-- 
tip: do not run in an unknown place when it is too dark to see the 
floor, unless you prefer to not use uppercase.

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