I have two questions about monkeys and evolution

[Tiberius]

Why are you replying to Tiberius and yet in your post quoting something I said?

Yes, I got the conversations mixed up. I was responding to Yours True, but the statement from post 577 I referenced was made by you.

Your ideal that the definition must necessarily rely on cladistics is what’s wrong. I never said fish are a monophyletic group. And that’s what cladistics. You are suggesting that recognizing an organism that has a backbone and yet is not a tetrapod is a useless concept.

You really work hard on missing the point, don't you?

 

[Tiberius]

No I’m taking what Tiberius said. He said fish do not exist. I even asked him point blank to clarify do you believe fish do not exist. And he said fish do not exist. Reread what you just wrote. You basically gave two options one either you believe sharks or not fish. Are you believe that humans are fish. And then you point out that any other conclusion would be inconsistent.

I completely understand the fish are not a monophyletic group according to cladistics. I reject that sharks are not fish. And I reject that humans are fish. I see no inconsistency in those three statements.

My position is that a group we can call Fish can not exist without arbitrarily deciding on what is included and what is excluded. There is no way we can say, "If an organism has these traits but not those traits, it is included in the group Fish," without also including organisms that we would say are NOT fish.

The label "fish" is fine for a colloquial, everyday kind of use, but there is no proper scientific definition for what a fish is, nor is it possible to produce one.

 

[Tiberius]

So, was the ancestor of all mammals a mammal?

The most recent common ancestor of all modern mammals was a primitive mammal.

What are (were) mammal like reptiles?

They were the transitional forms between reptiles and mammals.

Was archaeopteryx a bird or a dinosaur?

Birds are dinosaurs.

The point here is not to argue but understand. Cladistic’s defines species and monophyletic groups as distinct moments in evolution. That is very useful as a conceptual construct. But it does not represent reality completely.

It describes groups based on common ancestry.

There was an animal that was the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of all fish. However, there are some creatures that we would NOT call fish who also are descended from this. Thus, there is no MRCA for fish alone. Thus, from a cladistic point of view, there is no group that we can call fish.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Gotta say that I was thinking about insects lately and their role in a healthy environment. Or necessity. Meanwhile, maybe another thread as to the relationship between insects, fish and the supposed evolution to mammals, or maybe not mammals? Insects are still insects, aren't they?

Insects are invertebrates in the phylum Arthropoda. The first appears in the fossil record about 400 million years ago. They are not closely related to fish or mammals which are both groups of vertebrates.

Insects are very important to healthy ecosystems. A very few are pests. Of the millions of species of insects, those that are pests account for a fraction of a percent of that total. But those pests can rack up billions in costs of control and damage they produce. Bees provide us with about 5 billion dollars in economic input from honey, but their pollination efforts contribute about 15 billion dollars to our economy annually. Insects are very important.

 

[Tiberius]

Well, traditionally all mammals have hair. Yet that has nothing to do with what defines a a mammal. A mammal is any animal that has mammary glands. Mammal, mammary gland. That concept is useful. But it’s not right. It’s not wrong. It’s a mental construct.

Mammals are endothermic vertebrates belonging to class Mammalia of phylum Chordata. Some of their distinctive features are as follows: a neocortex, three middle ear bones, a lower jaw made of a single bone, a hairy body covering, a thoracic diaphragm, a four-chambered heart, and females that are mostly viviparous. SOURCE

In cladistics, it doesn’t matter if the common ancestor of all mammals had mammary glands or not. All that matters is can you circumscribe a group of species (whatever that is) all of the descendants of a common ancestor and no other species. That concept is useful. It is not right. It is not wrong. It is a mental construct.

Okay, let's try a thought experiment. Let's assume that the Most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of all mammals did NOT have mammary glands. That means that at some point later on, all the different types of mammals must have independently evolved the same feature for the same purpose. This is far more unlikely than the mrca of mammals had the feature and all the others kept it.

That brings up another question. How can you describe or define a clade of species, if you can’t define what a species is?

A clade is a group that is all descended from a single common ancestor.

If you have common ancestor A, and that ancestor evolves into different species A1, A2, A3, A4... A100, then all the different A species are in the same clade.

If A splits into species B and C, and B evolves into B1, B2, B3, etc, and C evolves into C1, C2, C3, etc, then all the different Bs are in one clade and all the different Cs are in another clade. And the B clade and the C clade can both be grouped within the A clade.

So you can have an organism that is a member of the A clade only, or it can be in the B clade, which means it is in the A and B clades. Or it can be in the C clade, which also includes it in the A clade as well. But you can't have an organism in both the B and C clade.

 

[Tiberius]

The goalposts are there. Either fish evolved to mammals or they did not. Which is it?

Mammals had an ancestor which we would call a fish.

 

[YoursTrue]

Insects are invertebrates in the phylum Arthropoda. The first appears in the fossil record about 400 million years ago. They are not closely related to fish or mammals which are both groups of vertebrates.

Insects are very important to healthy ecosystems. A very few are pests. Of the millions of species of insects, those that are pests account for a fraction of a percent of that total. But those pests can rack up billions in costs of control and damage they produce. Bees provide us with about 5 billion dollars in economic input from honey, but their pollination efforts contribute about 15 billion dollars to our economy annually. Insects are very important.

I was reading about bees recently. Not only can they be pretty (although they sting), they are vital to life, so it seems. One thing depending on another. And I was just reading about a type of worm that can digest plastic. How interesting. (Hope for the future perhaps?)

 

[YoursTrue]

Mammals had an ancestor which we would call a fish.

So say some scientists.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

No believer in evolution is going to answer your questions honestly.
To your second question, this article provides an interesting answer.
How To Speed Up Evolution: Switch Goals
Nadav Kashtan, Elad Noor and Prof. Uri Alon of the Institute's Molecular Cell Biology and Physics of Complex Systems Departments create computer simulations that mimic natural evolution, allowing them to investigate processes that, in nature, take place over millions of years. In these simulations, a population of digital genomes evolves over time towards a given goal: to maximize fitness under certain conditions.

Like living organisms, genomes that are better adapted to their environment may survive to the next generation or reproduce more prolifically. But such computer simulations, though sophisticated, don't yet have all the answers. Achieving even simple goals may take thousands of generations, raising the question of whether the three-or-so billion years since life first appeared on the planet is long enough to evolve the diversity and complexity that exist today,

The three or so billion years was clearly enough time for evolution to get where it is to day.
We and all of nature around us is proof of that. That is a visible fact.
Perhaps their computer simulations need more work on them for greater accuracy

 

[nPeace]

The three or so billion years was clearly enough time for evolution to get where it is to day.
We and all of nature around us is proof of that. That is a visible fact.
Perhaps their computer simulations need more work on them for greater accuracy

We and all of nature around us is circumstantial evidence. It is not a visible fact of evolution.
It's visible evidence of creation.

 

[Subduction Zone]

We and all of nature around us is circumstantial evidence. It is not a visible fact of evolution.
It's visible evidence of creation.

How so?

 

[Jose Fly]

We and all of nature around us is circumstantial evidence. It is not a visible fact of evolution.
It's visible evidence of creation.

The "visible fact of evolution" is....get this...the fact that we see evolution happening. Crazy, huh?

 

[Tiberius]

So say some scientists.

Yeah, based on this wonderful thing called evidence.

 

[YoursTrue]

Yeah, based on this wonderful thing called evidence.

Now that made me laugh. Thanks for your sense of humor.

 

[YoursTrue]

The "visible fact of evolution" is....get this...the fact that we see evolution happening. Crazy, huh?

We do?

 

[Subduction Zone]

We do?

Yes. We do. But to see it one has to know what one is looking for in real time. It is obvious when one looks at the fossil record.

 

[Tiberius]

Now that made me laugh. Thanks for your sense of humor.

You're only showing you don't understand science.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

We and all of nature around us is circumstantial evidence. It is not a visible fact of evolution.
It's visible evidence of creation.

It is evidence that there was sufficient time. Because we are where we are.
It is a choice between magic and science, as to how we got here.

 

[Jose Fly]

We do?

Yep.

 

[YoursTrue]

You're only showing you don't understand science.

Not at all. What I know from writings and conclusion of those like Darwin is that the claim is put forth that evolution happened and, it is also claimed that it is true and a fact by some.