I don’t think you’re grasping the idea of nested clades – a clade consists of one common ancestor and all its descendants. Hence, all our descendants will always be apes; that doesn’t preclude them from forming a new clade, but all members of that new clade will also be members of the ape clade. This is at odds with Linnaean taxonomy, where for instance birds, even though they are descendant of reptiles, aren’t considered to fall into the taxon reptilia.
It doesn’t matter what you think of the grammar, it’s a usage used by scientists in the relevant fields. They use it to communicate an unambiguous evolutionary relationship. You don’t get to play grammar police on a speech community you’re (obviously) not a member of.
There’s no failure in my logic. I’m stating how cladistic terminology is used in discussions of evolution.
And your use of “it” is unclear. You use “it” four times with no clear indication of what you’re referring to (probably more than one thing). Could you quote exactly which statement of mine you believe is false?
Well, despite the fact the devolution doesn’t actually exist, you could also point out to her that recent studies suggest men are producing less testosterone than they used to . While certainly not an indication of superiority or of inferiority it is decidedly less “ape-like” and thus less “devolving”.
If true, that’s a interspecies comparison within humans; it has nothing to do with testosterone levels in apes. This study indicates that male humans have more testosterone in their human than any ape.
I see. So your argument now is that because I don’t pay to post here, my thoughts are somehow inferior to those who choose to pay.
So, let’s say I decide to pay today, my thoughts thus, by your profoundly bad logic, become at least equal to yours.
You sure are one interesting character.
Merely saying your logic is free of fault doesn’t make it so. Indeed, I’m having trouble finding any example in this thread in which you’ve said anything that bears relation to a valid argument (let alone a sound one).
It’s also worth noting that you, member or not, don’t have a monopoly on thoughts, which is handy since the ones you’re right now espousing are abysmal. Snobbery is so much the better when it’s actually warranted.
The community he was speaking of was actually that of (evolutionary) biologists.
Evolutionary biology is a speech community? This comes as quite the news to me, as I’m sure it will to many, if not all, evolutionary biologists. The only community of which I’m aware that deals speech and is discussing this thread is, well, this one. And he has no idea what communities I may or may not belong to.
It’s worth noting that the entirety of our argument has been over the issue of prepositions. Or is it his argument that in science, there isn’t difference of opinions, that we all toe the line and just shut up about bad grammar? Bad grammar is bad grammar is bad grammar. No amount of harebrained, fallacious arguments on anyone’s part will alter that. If I want to take exception with the idea that we’re evolving from something to something of the same rank, then I’m bloody well going to. It’s goofy both grammatically and logically.
Evolution isn’t a process by which things change into themselves. It’s a process by which things change from what they are at the moment to whatever they’ll become next. It’s also curious that his argument has attendant in it, as a logical matter, that we have always been apes, which isn’t the case. At some point in the long ago and far away, our ancestors weren’t apes. They weren’t vertebrates, for that matter. But to take his logic and its necessary implications, apes have always been around. But that’s neither here nor there as it wasn’t the crux of my argument.
Relative to the idiomatic usage of ‘evolve from’ as an example of specialized jargon, yes.
You still haven’t got your cladistics quite right. None of our descendants can ever stop being apes; that doesn’t imply that mammals could never have become apes, since apes still are mammals. Besides, ‘we’ have always been apes; when we weren’t, we weren’t ‘we’. However, we do have ancestors that are not apes – i.e. the ancestors of the last common ancestor of all apes.
Well, I don’t know that you can say that with much certainty as future evolutionary changes aren’t predictable. I would agree that in the short term, none of our descendants can not be apes. Sure. But that isn’t what the discussion was about since my comment was made about the past, not the future.
So, as apt as that argument may be with respect to something, it surely has nothing to do with what I brought up.
His last post made it clear that he’s not a cladist. Which puts him about 20 years behind the times…
Not so much; at least not how it shows up on my screen. Or is this simply bravado?
Maybe you meant my post before last.
Well, since you posted at the same time as I did, I would go so far as to say now that both posts #87 and #89 demonstrate that you aren’t a cladist.
Well, there’s nothing like an opinion supported by reason. And that’s nothing like . . .
I’m not making a prediction, I’m merely stating a definition. A clade is a group made up of a common ancestor and all its descendants. In the cladistic sense, to be an ape means to be a descendant of the common ancestor of all apes, nothing else. Speaking in that sense, humans evolved from apes the same way birds evolved from reptiles, and in that same sense, humans are apes and birds are reptiles.
Your reading comprehension is poor. Let’s break down exactly what I said:
most people would use “ape” to mean any (living or not) member of the clade Hominoidea.
This is the biological definition of “ape”. This also the definition everyone in this thread is using, except you.
All human ancestors up to and including the most recent common ancestor of all apes are apes.
This is a simple application of the definitions of the human and ape clades.
it’s impossible for descendants to leave their ancestors’ clades.
This comes directly from the definition of “clade”.
That is, all human descendants will always be hominids, all hominids descendants will always be apes, all ape descendants will always be primates, all primate descendants we always be mammals, etc, on up the nested clades.
These are specific applications of the definition of “clade” to the clades of humans, hominids, apes, primates and mammals.
I’m not sure why you dislike the phrase “evolve from”, but it is commonly used by scientists and they know precisely what they mean by it. “Humans evolved from apes” means the human clade is nested within the ape clade.
This is a statement of fact about how scientists use the phrase “evolve from”.
It doesn’t matter what you think of the grammar, it’s a usage used by scientists in the relevant fields. They use it to communicate an unambiguous evolutionary relationship. You don’t get to play grammar police on a speech community you’re (obviously) not a member of.
The “speech community” I am referring to is “scientists in the relevant fields”. Scientists in every field develop precise terminology for specific concepts. They have no problem using “evolve from” and know exactly what another scientists means when the phrase is used. That speech community gets to decide for itself what is or is not grammatical. “Evolve from” is grammatical for them.
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And specific responses to ashman165:
And he has no idea what communities I may or may not belong to.
Your lack of understanding of basic cladistic concepts makes it clear that you are not a member of evolutionary biologist community. Even members of that community who do not accept cladistics are familiar with the terms and implications.
It’s also curious that his argument has attendant in it, as a logical matter, that we have always been apes, which isn’t the case. At some point in the long ago and far away, our ancestors weren’t apes. They weren’t vertebrates, for that matter. But to take his logic and its necessary implications, apes have always been around. But that’s neither here nor there as it wasn’t the crux of my argument.
Here you show your lack of comprehension of what I said. I said “all human ancestors up to and including the most recent common ancestor of all apes are apes”. That is quite different from “we have always been apes”. I describe exactly the point our ancestors first became apes–when an ancestor was the most recent common ancestor of all apes.
Seriously, ashman165, read the Wikipedia entry on cladistics. A majority of biologists use this taxonomic system rather than the traditional Linnaean system. Even if you prefer the Linnaean taxonomy, you should be able to understand what statements mean using cladistics.
I keep seeing in this thread that there is no such thing as devolution and that it is not possible for humans to devolve to apes. I disagree. If humans were to allow other apes to handle their own internal genus- and species-specific affairs, while we continued to handle defense, inter-order relations, and Hominoidea-wide issues, how would that not constitute devolution to apes?
…pronoun trouble.
While we’re at it - “Beware the beast man, for he is the Devil’s pawn. Alone among God’s primates, he kills for sport or lust or greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother’s land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him; drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of death.”
Just need to paraphrase to cover forum posts.
The main point of the thread, though, remains: was the girl hot?