tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4989966954446423670.post7331737676748805254..comments2024-03-02T00:44:55.128-08:00Comments on Pleiotropy: Dog speciationBjørn Østmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08859177313382114917noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4989966954446423670.post-55337053494217175182009-12-14T15:24:28.627-08:002009-12-14T15:24:28.627-08:00Whoa! Peripatric speciation. You don't see tha...Whoa! Peripatric speciation. You don't see that term used often.<br /><br />Yes, quite conceivable, I would say. Why not? We could have branched off the main stem of the big monkey lineage, and the monkeys staying largely the same for the usual reasons for <a href="http://pleion.blogspot.com/2008/12/stasis-does-not-falsify-evolution.html" rel="nofollow">stasis</a> (link is to a post I wrote on stasis exactly one year ago today).Bjørn Østmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08859177313382114917noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4989966954446423670.post-58400794726009409172009-12-14T09:32:15.884-08:002009-12-14T09:32:15.884-08:00So, being an evo biologist, maybe you can illumina...So, being an evo biologist, maybe you can illuminate me on this one... It doesn't seem to me like the persistence of an ancestor species would be any sort of deal-breaker, i.e. even if we <i>did</i> evolve from extant monkeys, so what? We know it is not the case from the fossil record and from genetic analysis, but if we didn't know those things, wouldn't it be conceivable for the ancestors of homo sapiens to have been derived by peripatric speciation from the same species as modern chimpanzees?James Sweethttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17212877636980569324noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4989966954446423670.post-77354821267493767482009-12-11T16:58:12.268-08:002009-12-11T16:58:12.268-08:00Sure, the primate ancestor probably looked somewha...Sure, the primate ancestor probably looked somewhat like a monkey, but the point is that many laymen think that we actually evolved from the extant monkeys. "So why are there still monkeys?"Bjørn Østmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08859177313382114917noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4989966954446423670.post-77172698792473870752009-12-10T09:27:46.405-08:002009-12-10T09:27:46.405-08:00It's always really annoying to me when laypeop...It's always really annoying to me when laypeople (such as myself) get all obsessed over taxonomy. I grant that a logical and as-comprehensive-as-possible system of taxonomy is very useful in many fields of biology (and maybe some others, I'm no expert). But obviously there is no real world referent to taxonomy; it is just an arbitrary system overlaid on the idiosyncratic relationships between different organisms in order to help certain types of scientists make sense of it. From a lay perspective, it doesn't really matter at all.<br /><br />By the same token, I have very mixed feelings to the evolutionist response in the following common exchange:<br /><br />Creationist: So you are saying we evolved from monkeys?<br /><br />Evolutionist: *sigh* No no, I am saying we have a COMMON ANCESTOR with monkeys.<br /><br />On one hand, it's important to point out that nobody is saying we evolved from <i>modern</i> monkeys. On the other hand, whether that common ancestor ought to be called a monkey or an ape or something completely different is irrelevant to the discussion, and probably not particularly interesting to most of us. (I watched a YouTube video that made a case that the only consistent taxonomy necessitated us calling the whole lot of them "monkeys"... probably an interesting and provocative point for an evo biologist, but for me it was the teacher on Peanuts :D )<br /><br />So anyway, yeah, Creationists trying to say that a baramin is defined as being the same as a family... WTF...<br /><br />On a side note, I just heard about baraminology within the past year, and I laughed and laughed and laughed....James Sweethttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17212877636980569324noreply@blogger.com