Re: For Sean Pitman: Some real nested hierarchies

On Mar 15, 8:21 am, John Harshman <jharshman.diespam...@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Seanpit wrote:
On Mar 14, 4:04 pm, John Harshman <jharshman.diespam...@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Seanpit wrote:
On Mar 14, 10:13 am, John Harshman <jharshman.diespam...@xxxxxxxxxxx
< snip >
The branching points are . . .   You just seem to have trouble reading
in context.  Not all words mean the same thing in different contexts.
Your words don't seem to mean the same thing in the same context. In
fact they seem not to mean anything in any context. Try to pay attention
to what you say. Read it over to determine if it said what you meant.
You're just blaming the victim here.
Do you understand that the MRCA of three groups is equally the MRCA of
all of them,
Yep . . .
and so saying that some humans are more closely related to
chimps than other humans is nonsense?
Describing the origin of an earlier split between the branches and the
origin of a later split between the branches as "more closely related
to the root of the tree" is not "nonsense".  In the central graph, one
branch split off before the others.
Oops. You just can't help it. One branch can't split off. Two branches
split.

If a single road splits off, you do understand the implication that
two roads are involved in the split? - right?

No, in fact that's not the way the English language works. ("One road
diverged in a snowy wood"?) A single road can't split off. Unless of
course a secondary road is splitting off from the main road. It's a
common mistake (not just by creationists) that there is some kind of
"main line" to evolution, and this might be some of your confusion; hard
to tell.

It is the way English works. It is very common in English language
literature to say that, "a trail branched off" or "a road diverged".
Of course Frost penned, "Two roads diverged", but this isn't the only
common expression of this sort of thing in English literature nor is
it the only "correct" way to express this idea. A single fork or
branch in a road is understood the same way as "two roads diverged".

http://wendy.cylence.org/

http://books.google.com/books?id=WbIHAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA27&lpg=PA27&dq=%22a+road+diverged%22&source=web&ots=D5HjaJhkkd&sig=u052dIYGjkMQ2ZilIwOSvehrm8I&hl=en

http://www.linguist.org.cn/doc/uc200603/uc20060307.pdf

http://books.google.com/books?id=9FgOAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA142&lpg=PA142&dq=%22a+road+diverged%22&source=web&ots=CmoY2kfT2A&sig=YcMZ7ietpTPUOsfj1BRQqMasPOM&hl=en

Again, you are being
deliberately hard headed here. How one person who seems to be fairly
bright can be so obtuse given the obvious is quite interesting.

I'm not just being pedantic here. Your language appears to reveal
misconceptions in your understanding of evolution. You have to
understand what you want to criticize.

You have to understand that there is more than one way to correctly
express an idea in the English langauge system. And, you are being
pedantic about your personal choice of how to express ideas and
describe various features. You are no better than the spelling flames
in this instance.

< snip >

How is the brown bear - polar bear a counter example?

Because some brown bears are more closely related to polar bears than to
other brown bears, and yet brown bears are a single species. Is this so
hard to understand?

That's not hard to understand. What is hard to understand is how this
counters anything I said?

The same
argument has been used for certain groups of people living today being
different "species" the same as has been used for Neandertals being a
different species - based on certain genetic and/or morphologic
differences and the idea that this group has been isolated for long
enough from interbreeding to become a different species.

Please give me an example of anyone who has made such an argument for
any groups of people living today. The last time I asked, you gave me an
irrelevant quote from Henry Fairfield Osborn. Do you have a real example?

That is a real example and it happened in fairly recent history. One
just need to be careful of such thinking is all. There are actually
living racists today as well - even within the scientific community.

Note, by the way, that you mischaracterize the Neanderthal argument. Now
"isolation from interbreeding" is ambiguous here. But the reason they're
considered a different species is that they are genetically and
morphologically divergent from H. sapiens and yet were for quite a while
broadly sympatric. Such difference can't be maintained in sympatry
unless there is reproductive isolation. Note also that the morphological
differences between neanderthals and modern humans are much greater than
those between any two modern humans, that modern humans do interbreed
whenever they come into sympatry, etc.

The morphologic variation of humans has been very great within recent
history. It is only in modern times that these morphologic difference
have begun to fade with increased interbreeding and movement toward a
common norm. However, marked racial anatomic variations have been
present within the past 100 years - just as significant as those
observed in Neandertals.

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com



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