Re: Co-optation Today

On Wed, 2 Jan 2008 16:26:48 -0800 (PST), Treus <treusdrie@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

John Harshman wrote:

Are you denying
that we can determine the phylogenetic relationships of species?

More like saying you are affirming beyond the evidence. There are very
many features connecting the species, obviously. And many properties
*could* be interpreted in terms of phylogeny, but what have you
discovered that is physically (i.e. in terms of observables)
inconsistent with those species not having ancestors in common?

You don't understand how science works, or what "observables" are. If
you want a movie showing penguins evolving from flying birds, you are
going to be out of luck. Likewise, if you want a movie showing two
hydrogen nuclei fusing to helium inside the sun, you are out of luck.
But I don't see you doubting solar fusion.

How ridiculous. It is obviously *you* who does not understand what a
system observable is, or you would not have responded with such a
simplistic mischaracterization.

We can
know that penguins had flying ancestors without knowing the name of any
of those ancestors, merely by noting that penguins are nested within a
clade of flying birds (which they are: see http://www.tolweb.org/Neoaves).

Nice pictures. I notice the nodes connecting extant species are
unpopulated. Are those details on the site somewhere?

No. As I have said oh so many times, there is no conceivable way in
which we can identify particular fossils as ancestors. The nodes will
always be unpopulated, no matter what. But that doesn't prevent us from
knowing the structure of the tree.

Nor imagining one.

The simplistic example is because that seems to be all you can handle.
The characterization is appropriate; the only miss is in you ability
to connect the dots.

It is easy to imagine all sorts of trees filled with all sorts of
nodes. Only the ones with good evidence get published and then
generally they, too, get harshly criticized on how the evidence gets
interpreted. What survives that test, repeatedly applied, becomes
the "generally accepted" tree.


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Poached: Is Lucy our ancestor?
    ... evidence and what we know. ... There is no evidence on which to base strong conclusions of ancestry, except for noticing the paraphyly of a biological species in the present day. ... Of course such relationships exist, though it seems unlikely, given the small proportion of species estimated to be preserved as fossils, that we actually have any examples of ancestors, even if we can't tell. ... no conceivable fossil evidence that would show one species to be ancestral to another, unless we knew somehow that we had a complete sample of all species in the taxon. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Poached: Is Lucy our ancestor?
    ... evidence and what we know. ... sequences of species. ... we actually have any examples of ancestors, ... identity of the great-grandfather in question. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Basic evolutionary theory question.
    ... but is there any evidence about why the ancestors of this "new ... In the case of species which have diverged less, ... possibility is chromosome re-arrangements. ... You mentioned 'evidence'. ...
    (sci.bio.evolution)
  • Re: Co-optation Today
    ... many features connecting the species, ... *could* be interpreted in terms of phylogeny, ... know that penguins had flying ancestors without knowing the name of any ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Co-optation Today
    ... that we can determine the phylogenetic relationships of species? ... many features connecting the species, ... know that penguins had flying ancestors without knowing the name of any ...
    (talk.origins)