 |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
On 28/12/2011 10:23 AM, Warp wrote:
> If you want to read two interesting books about biology and science,
> try "The Greatest Show on Earth" by Richard Dawkins and "The Demon Haunted
> World" by Carl Sagan.
I got the former for Christmas last year. I haven't read the latter...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
On 28-12-2011 9:18, Warp wrote:
> Patrick Elliott<sel### [at] npgcable com> wrote:
>> On 12/27/2011 4:55 PM, Cousin Ricky wrote:
>>> Some questions earned the pinnacle status of double-drink question. Examples:
>>> "Why do atheists come to the Religion section?" "Why do Catholics worship
>>> Mary?" "If we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?" That last
>>> question really belongs in the Biology room, but young-Earth creationists aren't
>>> known for keeping their domains straight. Bottoms up twice!
>>>
>> Yeah, its right up there in the logic level with, "If motorcycles where
>> based on bicycles, why are their still bicycles?", and similar
>> stupidities. Not just wrong category, but just.. like why they hell not?
>> Just because some of them got smarter meant that somehow the original
>> niche they filled disappeared? Brainless...
>
> It's actually it's wronger than that. According to cladistics(*) humans
> did not "evolve from monkeys". Instead, humans and monkeys have a common
> ancestor species. This ancestor species probably looked more like a monkey
> than a human, but was still relatively different from either.
it is a bit more complicated than that. the set of all monkeys *and*
homo is a clade. monkeys as a group are not. though the new world
monkeys are. monkeys are all simians except humans. so what was the last
common ancestor of man and chimps? that was not a member of the genus
homo, so i think that by the definition of monkey it was a monkey (and
an ape and a great ape). i am not sure if apes are considered monkeys.
(in the netherlands we don't have a distinct name for ape, a monkey is
an 'aap' and an ape is a 'mensaap' (mens==human). so here monkeys
include apes.) if apes are not monkeys we have another cladistic
problem. doesn't matter for the argument, just apply twice (or trice if
great apes are not apes).
i prefer a more cladistic definition of monkey, which implies that i did
not evolve from a monkey, but that i am a monkey and an ape and a great
ape. ook.
> (Also, apes are more closely related to humans than monkeys. It seems that
> creationists and other people who want to mock the theory of evolution
> deliberately use the more distantly related monkeys more as a mockery than
> anything else. According to cladistics humans and apes have a common ancestor
> species, which in turn has a common ancestor species with monkeys.)
funny that if they take it a bit further and try to mock the idea that
we descend from mammals many more people would get the absurdity. otoh
it might give a clue why creationists are in general allergic to breasts
in public. perhaps they don't want to be confronted with things that
point to their fallacy*.
> (*) Unlike most creationists and many other people think, the theory of
> evolution does not say what species humans evolved from. The theory of
> evolution describes the mechanism, not the history of evolution. For the
> history you need to turn to paleontology and cladistics.
>
*) insert your own pun here
--
tip: do not run in an unknown place when it is too dark to see the floor.
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
On Tue, 27 Dec 2011 18:55:09 -0500, Cousin Ricky wrote:
> "If we evolved from monkeys, why are there still
> monkeys?"
Answer: "Because you don't understand how evolution works."
Jim
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
On 12/28/2011 1:18 AM, Warp wrote:
> Patrick Elliott<sel### [at] npgcablecom> wrote:
>> On 12/27/2011 4:55 PM, Cousin Ricky wrote:
>>> Some questions earned the pinnacle status of double-drink question. Examples:
>>> "Why do atheists come to the Religion section?" "Why do Catholics worship
>>> Mary?" "If we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?" That last
>>> question really belongs in the Biology room, but young-Earth creationists aren't
>>> known for keeping their domains straight. Bottoms up twice!
>>>
>> Yeah, its right up there in the logic level with, "If motorcycles where
>> based on bicycles, why are their still bicycles?", and similar
>> stupidities. Not just wrong category, but just.. like why they hell not?
>> Just because some of them got smarter meant that somehow the original
>> niche they filled disappeared? Brainless...
>
> It's actually it's wronger than that. According to cladistics(*) humans
> did not "evolve from monkeys". Instead, humans and monkeys have a common
> ancestor species. This ancestor species probably looked more like a monkey
> than a human, but was still relatively different from either.
>
Yeah, more like, "If Motorcycles where derived from wagons, why are
there still horse carts?", or something...
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
On 12/28/2011 3:12 AM, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> On 23/12/2011 03:24 PM, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>> Yesterday, I burned my copy of Darwin's Black Box. Just so you know.
>
> They say every cloud has a silver lining. And in a sense, I guess that's
> true.
>
> Darwin's Black Box is a book written by an ignorant man trying to bully
> you into believing his fantasies, using the flimsiest of logic. (I gave
> up approximately when he started arguing that the definition of
> "science" is too limiting... Anyone who doesn't understand what science
> is has no business calling themselves a scientist, in my view.)
>
> On the other hand, reading Molecular Biology of the Gene [Watson et al]
> left me uninterested, yet reading Darwin's Black Box showed me just how
> interesting molecular biology is, and gave me decent intuitive
> metaphores for how this stuff actually works - something which the dense
> scientific reference text did not.
>
Not that I would bet on the intuitive metaphors of some clown trying to
argue against its corner stone, as useful. Its far more likely that
their metaphors are just as useless as their arguments (due to being
based on entirely flawed assumptions). Way too much of science ends up
in a category of, "counter intuitive", like the absurd idea that you
would need to chop up 50 feet of rope, with DNA written on it, to get 3
inches of code. Intuitively, this is completely idiotic, since no sane
*person* would make something like that. And, the "intuitive"
assumption, made by people that write these sorts of books, tends to be
that you have something that looks more like a book chapter, rather than
an fragmented hard drive, which someone dumped gigs of empty file
fragments into, before asking the system to seek all the bits and pieces
scattered between them, over 50% of the entire drive surface. lol
That sort of thing, and other such stuff, is "unnatural" to these sorts
of people, so can't possibly be, you know, how nature actually does
stuff. Sadly, if they where looking at certain viruses, or single cell
organisms, which lack mitochondria, they would be correct. Its just,
species with lots of bloody extra energy available to process DNA and
RNA turn into the genetic equivalent of hoarders.
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
On 12/28/2011 3:23 AM, Warp wrote:
> Orchid XP v8<voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>> On the other hand, reading Molecular Biology of the Gene [Watson et al]
>> left me uninterested, yet reading Darwin's Black Box showed me just how
>> interesting molecular biology is, and gave me decent intuitive
>> metaphores for how this stuff actually works - something which the dense
>> scientific reference text did not.
>
> If you want to read two interesting books about biology and science,
> try "The Greatest Show on Earth" by Richard Dawkins and "The Demon Haunted
> World" by Carl Sagan.
>
Another one, like "The Demon Haunted World", which is interesting, is
Paranormality, but Richard Wiseman. He also has a couple others out, "59
Seconds: Think a Little, Change a Lot", which goes into why self help is
usually useless, and what sort of things, based on how people do think,
would be more effective, and "Quirkology", which covers some seriously
goofy studies that have been done over the years, which do a fair job of
dispelling the suggestion that the average person is *at all* rational,
outside of where they have to be to get something accomplished (and not
even always then).
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> It's actually it's wronger than that. According to cladistics(*) humans
> did not "evolve from monkeys". Instead, humans and monkeys have a common
> ancestor species. This ancestor species probably looked more like a monkey
> than a human, but was still relatively different from either.
>
> (Also, apes are more closely related to humans than monkeys. It seems that
> creationists and other people who want to mock the theory of evolution
> deliberately use the more distantly related monkeys more as a mockery than
> anything else. According to cladistics humans and apes have a common ancestor
> species, which in turn has a common ancestor species with monkeys.)
Please find attached a simplified cladogram.
Now, if C was the most recent common ancestor of all the apes, then how could C
not be an ape?
If C was an ape, then how can humans not be apes?
We were just getting comfortable with that conclusion, and then some
troublemakers pointed out...
If A was the most recent common ancestor of Old World monkeys and New World
monkeys, then how could A not be a monkey?
If A was a monkey, then how could B not be a monkey?
If B was a monkey, then how could C not be a monkey?
If C was a monkey, then how can apes not be a monkeys (which they *are*,
according to dictionaries)?
If apes are monkeys, then how can humans not be monkeys?
Just accept it. Screw the creationists' fragile egos.
Post a reply to this message
Attachments:
Download 'monkeys.png' (57 KB)
Preview of image 'monkeys.png'
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
On 29-12-2011 0:16, Cousin Ricky wrote:
> Warp<war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
>> It's actually it's wronger than that. According to cladistics(*) humans
>> did not "evolve from monkeys". Instead, humans and monkeys have a common
>> ancestor species. This ancestor species probably looked more like a monkey
>> than a human, but was still relatively different from either.
>>
>> (Also, apes are more closely related to humans than monkeys. It seems that
>> creationists and other people who want to mock the theory of evolution
>> deliberately use the more distantly related monkeys more as a mockery than
>> anything else. According to cladistics humans and apes have a common ancestor
>> species, which in turn has a common ancestor species with monkeys.)
>
> Please find attached a simplified cladogram.
reading a bit more on wikipedia (possibly not the most reliable source,
but it will have to do for this year) that cladogram is not correct
[anymore]. there could have been an oval around the lesser apes, great
apes and humans. 'ape' is nowadays used for that entire clade. even
better, humans are great apes nowadays. monkeys still are not a clade as
the humans have to be left out. in short your ovals should intersect. i
added a correction for the great apes only.
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.
--
tip: do not run in an unknown place when it is too dark to see the
floor, unless you prefer to not use uppercase.
Post a reply to this message
Attachments:
Download 'monkeys.png' (54 KB)
Preview of image 'monkeys.png'
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
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? Because we
don't like being monkeys?
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.
> 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. The biological community is
going to have to decide what they want to do with the term "reptile." 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.
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Cousin Ricky <rickysttATyahooDOTcom> wrote:
> If A was the most recent common ancestor of Old World monkeys and New World
> monkeys, then how could A not be a monkey?
It of course depends on how the ancestral species are named, but I don't
see your point.
Just because archosaurs are the most recent common ancestors of both
birds and crocodiles doesn't mean that a bird is a crocodile (or the
other way around). They are (according to cladistics) both archosaurs,
but not each other.
Likewise if humans and monkeys had a common ancestor, that doesn't mean
that humans are monkeys (or the other way around). Unless you specifically
name this common ancestor "monkey".
--
- Warp
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
