Setting the record straight about a _Science_ article on mammal evolution

[pnyikos]

In the February 8 issue of _Science_, an international team of
researchers published a paper that is sure to ignite a lot of
controversy among paleontologists and people in related fields. This
is because they place the last common ancestor of ALL living placental
mammals after the extinction of the dinosaurs.

I will have more to say about this controversy later in this thread,
but in this first post I am focusing on an "intramural" controversy.
It was ignited by the following passage in a BBC report on the
article.

"Placental mammals - as opposed to the kind that lay eggs,
such as the platypus, or carry young in pouches,
such as the kangaroo - are an extraordinarily diverse group
of animals with more than 5,000 species today."
-- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21350900

In contrast, Ron Okimoto posted the following claim about the same
_Science_ article:

"The article is lumping marsupial and eutherian placental
mammals together and is talking about the ancestor
between egg laying mammals like monotremes and
the placentals like marsupials and eutherians. It states
that it is talking about the ancestor that separated us from
our egg laying ancestors."

John Harshman and Steven L. had posted less than an hour earlier, and
three other t.o. regulars (including John Wilkins) and one other
person went on to post to this thread later the same day (Feb 9).
Wilkins even posted the following day, yet none of these people
alluded to the striking discrepancy between the two claims about the
same article.

Finally, on February 14, I decided to try and clarify the situation,
replying to Ron O's post where he made the statement, saying *inter
alia*:

"Are you saying that Jason Palmer,
Science and technology reporter, BBC
News, got it all wrong?
...
"I'd like to see you cite from the Science article itself
for this claim of yours."
-- http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/d17ab2ed51527217

Ron O ignored the issue three times running, and apparently everyone
else involved in the thread had lost track of it, so I took it upon
myself to read the Science paper itself.

And I can categorically state that Jason Palmer got it right and Ron O
got it wrong. I'm not referring to Ron O's definition of "placental"
but what the whole theme of the article was.

The article places the LCA of the clade Placentalia in the Paleocene,
while dating the eutherian - marsupial split all the way back to the
Jurassic:

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/339/6120/662/F1.large.jpg

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
http://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/
nyikos @ math.sc.edu

[John Harshman]

True. They are talking about the placental crown group, and consider all
Cretaceous placental fossils to belong tot he stem group. Whether that's
true is another question.

[pnyikos]

I have added sci.bio.paleontology. This is the second post to this
thread in talk.origins; the first had to do with a little "intramural"
confusion exclusive to t.o.

On Feb 25, 2:59�pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> In the February 8 issue of _Science_, an international team of
> researchers published a paper that is sure to ignite a lot of
> controversy among paleontologists and people in related fields. �This
> is because they place the last common ancestor of ALL living placental
> mammals after the extinction of the dinosaurs.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/339/6120/662.full

The full article is paywalled, but perhaps the evolutionary tree
referenced at the end of this post is not.

What is especially noteworthy is that the authors do NOT reassess the
molecular evidence for this late date, but rely on fossil evidence
(and perhaps some sophisticated morphological thinking in the
supplementary article, which runs to 131 pages).

And yet, the following website, also in a supplement to a _Science_
article, claims the existence of a ca. 5-kilo condylarth and a
taenolabid of the same size from 105.5 mya:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/suppl/2010/11/22/330.6008.1216.DC1/Smith.SOM.pdf

Taenolabids may or may not be placentals -- they have long been
extinct -- but condylarths were primitive placentals related to extant
ungulates.

Even if this critter turns out to have been mis-identified, it seems
very shaky to conclude from the dearth of clearly identifiable
Cretaceous placental mammals that the LCA lived after the K-T
extinction event.

Isn't the conventional wisdom about the Cambrian explosion that the
many phyla first appearing then had a long evolutionary history which
simply hasn't shown up in the fossils we have now? Why such a
different conclusion about the LCA of living placentals?

> The article places the LCA of the clade Placentalia in the Paleocene,
> while dating the eutherian - marsupial split all the way back to the
> Jurassic:
>
> http://www.sciencemag.org/content/339/6120/662/F1.large.jpg

This can be magnified further if the details are still hard to read.

[John Harshman]

The conventional wisdom is that we don't know. There are fossils in
pre-Cambrian deposits that might or might not be stem-members of several
phyla. I believe there's been some discussion of the various possible
hypotheses of placental evolution: short fuse, long fuse, etc. And that
language was taken exactly from the literature on the Cambrian explosion.

> Why such a
> different conclusion about the LCA of living placentals?

Presumably, based on a belief that the fossil record of placental
mammals is better than the pre-explosion record of phyla and thus is
better able to constrain hypotheses. And I agree that this is true. But
is it true enough to enable us to draw firm conclusions? That's the
question.

[pnyikos]

As long as I have you on the line, John, here is the bulk of a reply I
did to you on the thread where this _Science_ article was first
discussed earlier this month.

Did you lose track of the thread before Valentine's Day? You never
did reply, and some of what I wrote is still relevant to this thread.
Snips are marked with [...].


On Feb 8, 4:54 pLocal: Thurs, Feb 14 2013 9:42 pm
Subject: Re: Earliest placental mammal ancestor pinpointed

On Feb 8, 4:54 pm, John Harshman <jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:


> On 2/8/13 1:33 PM, Metspitzer wrote:

> > The creature that gave rise to all the placental mammals - a huge
> > group that includes whales, elephants, dogs, bats and us - has at last
> > been pinpointed.

> Urk. Science journalism at its worst.

Fortunately, there is a link in the article which takes you to an
abstract in the 8 February issue of Science.


> > An international effort mapped out thousands of physical traits and
> > genetic clues to trace the lineage.

> > Their results indicate that all placental mammals arose from a small,
> > furry, insect-eating animal.

A mountain labors and brings forth a mouse, er, a small furry insect
eating animal.

[Two out of three ain't bad.] :-)


The abstract is underwhelming. Specific "discoveries" are listed in
the second half:


"Many nodes discovered using molecular data are upheld, but phenomic
signals overturn molecular signals to show Sundatheria (Dermoptera +
Scandentia) as the sister taxon of Primates, a close link between
Proboscidea (elephants) and Sirenia (sea cows), and the monophyly of
echolocating Chiroptera (bats). Our tree suggests that Placentalia
first split into Xenarthra and Epitheria; extinct New World species
are the oldest members of Afrotheria."


http://www.sciencemag.org/content/339/6120/662.abstract

[...]

[T]he only conclusion above that is the least bit surprising
is the last sentence. I always did wonder whether "Afrotheria"
is a well supported group.

> > A report in Science resolves the debate as to when the creature lived;
> > it came about after the demise of dinosaurs.

> This seems odd, considering the number of claimed Cretaceous placental
> fossils.

It also flies in the face of a huge number of estimates of divergence
time in that website you gave me on another thread, John.

http://www.timetree.org/


Entering "human" and "armadillo" I get an average date of divergence
of 104.1 million years, deep within the Cretaceous. Even two animals
as close as colugos ("flying lemurs") and bats get 94.4 mya.

The lead article of this thread in talk.origins [I've added
sci.bio.paleontology] has a lot of popularized talk about the
characters of the LCA of the crown group, but very little as to how
the dates were arrived at.

I wonder what the "clincher" in the report is supposed to be, the one
that sets aside all the research behind this website. The abstract
simply states a bald claim:


"Combining these data with molecular sequences, we obtained a
phylogenetic tree that, when calibrated with fossils, shows that
crown
clade Placentalia and placental orders originated after the K-Pg
boundary." [ibid.]



> Are they all outside the crown group? Maybe, but I'd like to
> see that backed up.

> No subscription to Science, unfortunately.

Our university library has one, and I might even be able to access it
online at my office. Here at home, it is paywalled.
================= end of text

By the way, it seems that the conclusion that Microchiroptera is a
clade is out of the mainstream: the other phylogenies I've seen today
have Megachiroptera as a clade, while "echolocating Chiroptera," as
the abstract puts it, is paraphyletic.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--

[John Harshman]

On 2/25/13 3:02 PM, pnyikos wrote:
> As long as I have you on the line, John, here is the bulk of a reply I
> did to you on the thread where this _Science_ article was first
> discussed earlier this month.
>
> Did you lose track of the thread before Valentine's Day? You never
> did reply, and some of what I wrote is still relevant to this thread.
> Snips are marked with [...].

I don't see anything that demands a response, but if you really want
one, sure.

I disagree. The relationships among Scandentia, Dermopter, and Primates
are still contentious. Afrotheria is not in the least controversial, but
Epitheria is.

>>> A report in Science resolves the debate as to when the creature lived;
>>> it came about after the demise of dinosaurs.
>
>> This seems odd, considering the number of claimed Cretaceous placental
>> fossils.
>
> It also flies in the face of a huge number of estimates of divergence
> time in that website you gave me on another thread, John.
>
> http://www.timetree.org/

That's largely because almost all of those estimates are molecular.
There are also issues with the tree topology used (really, apparently, a
classification inferred to represent a tree).

> Entering "human" and "armadillo" I get an average date of divergence
> of 104.1 million years, deep within the Cretaceous. Even two animals
> as close as colugos ("flying lemurs") and bats get 94.4 mya.
>
> The lead article of this thread in talk.origins [I've added
> sci.bio.paleontology] has a lot of popularized talk about the
> characters of the LCA of the crown group, but very little as to how
> the dates were arrived at.
>
> I wonder what the "clincher" in the report is supposed to be, the one
> that sets aside all the research behind this website. The abstract
> simply states a bald claim:
>
>
> "Combining these data with molecular sequences, we obtained a
> phylogenetic tree that, when calibrated with fossils, shows that
> crown
> clade Placentalia and placental orders originated after the K-Pg
> boundary." [ibid.]

I'm guessing that the actual information you want is in the
supplementary material, which should be free.

>> Are they all outside the crown group? Maybe, but I'd like to
>> see that backed up.
>
>> No subscription to Science, unfortunately.
>
> Our university library has one, and I might even be able to access it
> online at my office. Here at home, it is paywalled.
> ================= end of text
>
> By the way, it seems that the conclusion that Microchiroptera is a
> clade is out of the mainstream: the other phylogenies I've seen today
> have Megachiroptera as a clade, while "echolocating Chiroptera," as
> the abstract puts it, is paraphyletic.

Microchiroptera is not synonymous with echolocating Chiroptera, so there
is no necessary contradiction here. Nor do I know what phylogenies you
have seen today.

[Ron O]

On Feb 25, 1:59�pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> In the February 8 issue of _Science_, an international team of
> researchers published a paper that is sure to ignite a lot of
> controversy among paleontologists and people in related fields. �This
> is because they place the last common ancestor of ALL living placental
> mammals after the extinction of the dinosaurs.
>
> I will have more to say about this controversy later in this thread,
> but in this first post I am focusing on an "intramural" controversy.
> It was ignited by the following passage in a BBC report on the
> article.
>
> � "Placental mammals - as opposed to the kind that lay eggs,
> � �such as the platypus, or carry young in pouches,
> � �such as the kangaroo - are an extraordinarily diverse group
> � �of animals with more than 5,000 species today."

> --http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21350900

>
> In contrast, Ron Okimoto posted the following claim about the same
> _Science_ article:
>
> � "The article is lumping marsupial and eutherian placental
> � �mammals together and is talking about the ancestor
> � �between egg laying mammals like monotremes and
> � �the placentals like marsupials and eutherians. �It states
> � �that it is talking about the ancestor that separated us from
> � �our egg laying ancestors."
>
> John Harshman and Steven L. had posted less than an hour earlier, and
> three other t.o. regulars (including John Wilkins) and one other
> person went on to post to this thread later the same day (Feb 9).
> Wilkins even posted the following day, yet none of these people
> alluded to the striking discrepancy between the two claims about the
> same article.
>
> Finally, on February 14, I decided to try and clarify the situation,
> replying to Ron O's post where he made the statement, saying *inter
> alia*:
>
> �"Are you saying that Jason Palmer,
> � Science and technology reporter, BBC
> � News, got it all wrong?
> ...
> � "I'd like to see you cite from the Science article itself
> � �for this claim of yours."

> --http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/d17ab2ed51527217

>
> Ron O ignored the issue three times running, and apparently everyone
> else involved in the thread had lost track of it, so I took it upon
> myself to read the Science paper itself.
>
> And I can categorically state that Jason Palmer got it right and Ron O
> got it wrong. �I'm not referring to Ron O's definition of "placental"
> but what the whole theme of the article was.
>
> The article places the LCA of the clade Placentalia in the Paleocene,
> while dating the eutherian - marsupial split all the way back to the
> Jurassic:
>
> http://www.sciencemag.org/content/339/6120/662/F1.large.jpg
>
> Peter Nyikos
> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics � � � -- standard disclaimer--

> University of South Carolinahttp://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/
> nyikos @ math.sc.edu

Now that I see what you are yammering about, I missed the last part of
the quote that included marsupials. I didn't know that I had missed
it. So what? I thought that they were talking about the difference
between egglayers and placental mammals. I admit that I got it wrong,
and it was just a mistake of not reading the article carefully enough.

Why is it important to you? If I thought that you had anything worth
saying I would have read your stupid post, but you haven't had
anything worth reading for over a year and a half. Really, what kind
of crap do you usually post to me? Do you want me to put up a couple
of recent examples of what you post to me and to others?

Are you going to give the same treatment to what you snipped out and
ran from or are you just going to snip and run? Who just started a
whole thread on dishonest deletion and post manipulation? Who deleted
a post and lied about why he deleted it after I said that you had
bogusly manipulated the post. Who keeps lying about never lying on
the internet? Why should I read the posts of someone that badly off?

Anyone want to bet against Nyikos running?

Ron Okimoto

[John S. Wilkins]

John Harshman <jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote:

> On 2/25/13 3:02 PM, pnyikos wrote:

...

> >>> A report in Science resolves the debate as to when the creature lived;
> >>> it came about after the demise of dinosaurs.
> >
> >> This seems odd, considering the number of claimed Cretaceous placental
> >> fossils.
> >
> > It also flies in the face of a huge number of estimates of divergence
> > time in that website you gave me on another thread, John.
> >
> > http://www.timetree.org/
>
> That's largely because almost all of those estimates are molecular.
> There are also issues with the tree topology used (really, apparently, a
> classification inferred to represent a tree).

John, have you turned to the Dark Transformed Side?
...
--
John S. Wilkins, Associate, Philosophy, University of Sydney
Honorary Fellow, University of Melbourne
- http://evolvingthoughts.net

[pnyikos]

On Feb 25, 6:49�pm, John Harshman <jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> On 2/25/13 3:02 PM, pnyikos wrote:
>
> > As long as I have you on the line, John, here is the bulk of a reply I
> > did to you on the thread where this _Science_ article was first
> > discussed earlier this month.

[snip]

> > Did you lose track of the thread before Valentine's Day? �You never
> > did reply, and some of what I wrote is still relevant to this thread.
> > Snips are marked with [...].
>
> I don't see anything that demands a response, but if you really want
> one, sure.
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Feb 8, 4:54 pLocal: Thurs, Feb 14 2013 9:42 pm
> > Subject: Re: Earliest placental mammal ancestor pinpointed

> > The abstract is underwhelming. Specific "discoveries" are listed in
> > the second half:
>
> > "Many nodes discovered using molecular data are upheld, but phenomic
> > signals overturn molecular signals to show Sundatheria (Dermoptera +
> > Scandentia) as the sister taxon of Primates, a close link between
> > Proboscidea (elephants) and Sirenia (sea cows), and the monophyly of
> > echolocating Chiroptera (bats). Our tree suggests that Placentalia
> > first split into Xenarthra and Epitheria; extinct New World species
> > are the oldest members of Afrotheria."
>
> >http://www.sciencemag.org/content/339/6120/662.abstract
>
> > [...]
>
> > [T]he only conclusion above that is the least bit surprising
> > is the last sentence. �I always did wonder whether "Afrotheria"
> > is a well supported group.
>
> I disagree. The relationships among Scandentia, Dermopter, and Primates
> are still contentious.

I'm under the impression that this is almost a "trifurcation" [I
forget the technical term] so it's almost a flip (or two) of the coin
which two groups are grouped together. Since it is almost a heresy
among cladistic systematists to have trifurcations in a phylogenetic
tree, there is no cause for surprise IMHO.

> Afrotheria is not in the least controversial, but
> Epitheria is.

So Afrotheria is supported by both molecular and morphological
evidence, is it?

> > On Feb 8, 4:54 pm, John Harshman<jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>
> >> On 2/8/13 1:33 PM, Metspitzer wrote:

> > >> A report in Science resolves the debate as to when the creature lived;
> >>> it came about after the demise of dinosaurs.
>
> >> This seems odd, considering the number of claimed Cretaceous placental
> >> fossils.
>
> > It also flies in the face of a huge number of estimates of divergence
> > time in that website you gave me on another thread, John.
>
> >http://www.timetree.org/
>
> That's largely because almost all of those estimates are molecular.

Aren't there claims of Mesozoic fossils from other eutherian groups
besides Condylartha? I'm referring to the reference I gave in my
second post, which claimed the existence of a ca. 5-kilo condylarth

and a taenolabid of the same size from 105.5 mya:

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/suppl/2010/11/22/330.6008.1216.DC1/Smith.SOM.pdf

See bottom of page 4.

> There are also issues with the tree topology used (really, apparently, a
> classification inferred to represent a tree).

And trees are the only way for you cladophiles to go, n'est-ce pas?

[snip]

> > Entering "human" and "armadillo" I get an average date of divergence
> > of 104.1 million years, deep within the Cretaceous. �Even two animals
> > as close as colugos ("flying lemurs") and bats get 94.4 mya.

Note the similarity of the first figure to that 105.5 figure in the
other site.

> >> � Are they all outside the crown group? Maybe, but I'd like to

> >> see that backed up.
>
> >> No subscription to Science, unfortunately.
>
> > Our university library has one, and I might even be able to access it
> > online at my office. �Here at home, it is paywalled.
> > ================= end of text
>
> > By the way, it seems that the conclusion that Microchiroptera is a
> > clade is out of the mainstream: the other phylogenies I've seen today
> > have Megachiroptera as a clade, while "echolocating Chiroptera," as
> > the abstract puts it, is paraphyletic.
>
> Microchiroptera is not synonymous with echolocating Chiroptera, so there
> is no necessary contradiction here. Nor do I know what phylogenies you
> have seen today.

Here is one of them, served up two different ways:

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/307/5709/580/F2.large.jpg
color coded wrt location:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/307/5709/580/F3.large.jpg

As usual, the full article is paywalled. Here is a little excerpt:

"However, molecules reveal a sister-taxon relationship between the
rhinolophoid microbats and the megabats (Yinpterochiroptera),
suggesting either multiple origins of laryngeal echolocation within
bats or a single origin of echolocation with subsequent loss in
megabats (5) (10)."
[the microbats have the Yang prefix!]

The article leans towards the latter hypothesis, and goes on to
hypothesize that echolocation and powered flight co-evolved. It talks
about the "big bang" of bat diversification in the Eocene.

Peter Nyikos

[John Harshman]

On 2/25/13 3:56 PM, John S. Wilkins wrote:
> John Harshman<jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>
>> On 2/25/13 3:02 PM, pnyikos wrote:
> ...
>>>>> A report in Science resolves the debate as to when the creature lived;
>>>>> it came about after the demise of dinosaurs.
>>>
>>>> This seems odd, considering the number of claimed Cretaceous placental
>>>> fossils.
>>>
>>> It also flies in the face of a huge number of estimates of divergence
>>> time in that website you gave me on another thread, John.
>>>
>>> http://www.timetree.org/
>>
>> That's largely because almost all of those estimates are molecular.
>> There are also issues with the tree topology used (really, apparently, a
>> classification inferred to represent a tree).
>
> John, have you turned to the Dark Transformed Side?
> ...

No, but you may explain.

[pnyikos]

On Feb 25, 6:53�pm, Ron O <rokim...@cox.net> wrote:
> On Feb 25, 1:59 pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

[snip]

> > but in this first post I am focusing on an "intramural" controversy.
> > It was ignited by the following passage in a BBC report on the
> > article.
>
> > "Placental mammals - as opposed to the kind that lay eggs,
> > such as the platypus, or carry young in pouches,
> > such as the kangaroo - are an extraordinarily diverse group
> > of animals with more than 5,000 species today."
> > --http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21350900

This quote appears in full below, and had been left in replies by you,
Ron O, three times running.

> > In contrast, Ron Okimoto posted the following claim about the same
> > _Science_ article:
>
> > "The article is lumping marsupial and eutherian placental
> > mammals together and is talking about the ancestor
> > between egg laying mammals like monotremes and
> > the placentals like marsupials and eutherians. It states
> > that it is talking about the ancestor that separated us from
> > our egg laying ancestors."

I quoted this in full in the first two of three replies to you,
[documentation of second time below] then all but the last sentence
the third time, all to no avail. The outcome is your incredibly
revealing floundering below.

> > Finally, on February 14, I decided to try and clarify the situation,
> > replying to Ron O's post where he made the statement, saying *inter
> > alia*:
>
> > "Are you saying that Jason Palmer,
> > Science and technology reporter, BBC
> > News, got it all wrong?
> > ...
> > "I'd like to see you cite from the Science article itself
> > for this claim of yours."
> > --http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/d17ab2ed51527217

> > And I can categorically state that Jason Palmer got it right and Ron O
> > got it wrong. I'm not referring to Ron O's definition of "placental"
> > but what the whole theme of the article was.
>
> > The article places the LCA of the clade Placentalia in the Paleocene,
> > while dating the eutherian - marsupial split all the way back to the
> > Jurassic:
>
> >http://www.sciencemag.org/content/339/6120/662/F1.large.jpg

And now comes the very belated admission of cluelessness:

> Now that I see what you are yammering about,

You have no excuse for not knowing. I even warned you in my third
reply:

"You'd better care whether you are misrepresenting an article in
_Science_, even if Satan himself [if there is such a being] suggests
that this is what your are doing and shows how your summary disagrees
with that of a BBC Science Writer."

In your reply, you acted as though nothing were there:

________________excerpt from your reply__________

> > Do I care what your opinion is on this topic?

> You'd better care whether you are misrepresenting an article in
> _Science_, even if Satan himself [if there is such a being] suggests
> that this is what your are doing and shows how your summary disagrees
> with that of a BBC Science Writer.

> > Do you really believe what you wrote?

> Yes.

Another lie.
====================== end of excerpt

You couldn't support that accusation of lying if your life savings
depended on it. Everything I wrote was every bit as factual as
today's post to which you are replying.

I had carefully avoided replying to your hate-crazed wild attacks on
me, snipping them out and leaving in only on-topic stuff.

You NEVER read any of it, did you? You just left it all in at the
ends of your three replies to me, and rode your anti-Nyikos hobbyhorse
all the way.

> I missed the last part of
> the quote that included marsupials. �I didn't know that I had missed
> it.

That's what happens when you ignore warnings like the one above. And
that was in my last reply to you, when I cut out everything redundant
so that the challenge, and the two quotes that you also see above your
first words, would stand out like beacons:

http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/7bb2afbb5087b927

They also stood out pretty well in my preceding reply, the one that
prompted your clueless question whether I believed everything I wrote:

http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/257107a60efc3792

__________ begin excerpt______________________

[snip long rambling off-topic rant by you to get to the wild on-topic
statment made by you earlier:]

> > > The article is lumping marsupial and eutherian placental mammals
> > > together and is talking about the ancestor between egg laying mammals
> > > like monotremes and the placentals like marsupials and eutherians.

Here is why it was wild:

> > Not according to the BBC website which Metspitzer was using for his
> > opening post:

> > "Placental mammals - as opposed to the kind that lay eggs, such
> > as the platypus, or carry young in pouches, such as the kangaroo -
> > are an extraordinarily diverse group of animals with more than
> > 5,000 species today."

> > > It
> > > states that it is talking about the ancestor that separated us from
> > > our egg laying ancestors.

And here is the challenge, from which you ran away:

> > Are you saying that Jason Palmer, Science and technology reporter, BBC
> > News, got it all wrong?

> > Look, I suppose you can be forgiven for claiming that all marsupials
> > are "placentals" -- just because they have structures that some
> > biologists call placentas-- but this is really going out on a limb.

> > I'd like to see you cite from the Science article itself for this
> > claim of yours.

I've snipped the rest, which was a science lesson by me on the
subject
of how marsupial "placentas" differ from those of "Placental mammals
-
as opposed to..." [see above]
============= end of excerpt

I even left sci.bio.paleontology off the newsgroups so you wouldn't
get stuck on that, but you insisted on turning our exchange into an
off-topic slugfest anyway. Too bad I didn't play along, eh?


>�So what? �I thought that they were talking about the difference

> between egglayers and placental mammals. �I admit that I got it wrong,

Too little, too late. You have discredited yourself.

> and it was just a mistake of not reading the article carefully enough.

Your REAL mistake was to "consider the source," to use a formula of
your kid-gloves corrector John Harshman, and blindly assume that
whatever I wrote didn't matter:

> Why is it important to you? �If I thought that you had anything worth
> saying I would have read your stupid post,

None of my three posts were stupid, liar.

YOUR three replies to me were abysmally stupid.

[snip ransparently phony, self-righteous, self-satisfied, self-
serving and utterly dishonest excuse]

Peter Nyikos

[John Harshman]

The technical term is "trichotomy". Where did you get that impression?
And no, it is neither a heresy nor almost a heresy.

>> Afrotheria is not in the least controversial, but
>> Epitheria is.
>
> So Afrotheria is supported by both molecular and morphological
> evidence, is it?

Why should that be relevant?

>>> On Feb 8, 4:54 pm, John Harshman<jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>>
>>>> On 2/8/13 1:33 PM, Metspitzer wrote:
>
>>>>> A report in Science resolves the debate as to when the creature lived;
>>>>> it came about after the demise of dinosaurs.
>>
>>>> This seems odd, considering the number of claimed Cretaceous placental
>>>> fossils.
>>
>>> It also flies in the face of a huge number of estimates of divergence
>>> time in that website you gave me on another thread, John.
>>
>>> http://www.timetree.org/
>>
>> That's largely because almost all of those estimates are molecular.
>
> Aren't there claims of Mesozoic fossils from other eutherian groups
> besides Condylartha? I'm referring to the reference I gave in my
> second post, which claimed the existence of a ca. 5-kilo condylarth
> and a taenolabid of the same size from 105.5 mya:

Yes, there are.

> http://www.sciencemag.org/content/suppl/2010/11/22/330.6008.1216.DC1/Smith.SOM.pdf
>
> See bottom of page 4.
>
>
>> There are also issues with the tree topology used (really, apparently, a
>> classification inferred to represent a tree).
>
> And trees are the only way for you cladophiles to go, n'est-ce pas?

Do you know of another way to talk about divergence? I'm assuming this
is merely a knee-jerk poke that lets you use the word "cladophile", and
that you didn't think about it at all.

>>> Entering "human" and "armadillo" I get an average date of divergence
>>> of 104.1 million years, deep within the Cretaceous. Even two animals
>>> as close as colugos ("flying lemurs") and bats get 94.4 mya.
>
> Note the similarity of the first figure to that 105.5 figure in the
> other site.

I don't know what you're talking about here.

>>>> Are they all outside the crown group? Maybe, but I'd like to
>>>> see that backed up.
>>
>>>> No subscription to Science, unfortunately.
>>
>>> Our university library has one, and I might even be able to access it
>>> online at my office. Here at home, it is paywalled.
>>> ================= end of text
>>
>>> By the way, it seems that the conclusion that Microchiroptera is a
>>> clade is out of the mainstream: the other phylogenies I've seen today
>>> have Megachiroptera as a clade, while "echolocating Chiroptera," as
>>> the abstract puts it, is paraphyletic.
>>
>> Microchiroptera is not synonymous with echolocating Chiroptera, so there
>> is no necessary contradiction here. Nor do I know what phylogenies you
>> have seen today.
>
> Here is one of them, served up two different ways:
>
> http://www.sciencemag.org/content/307/5709/580/F2.large.jpg
> color coded wrt location:
> http://www.sciencemag.org/content/307/5709/580/F3.large.jpg

OK, we do have a paraphyletic Microchiroptera, and as I see from the
supplementary information, support is pretty good. I would like to have
seen some gene jackknifing and/or individual locus trees.

[John Harshman]

You seem, if anything, more obsessive than Peter and even less worth
reading. Just saying.

[pnyikos]

On Feb 25, 6:56�pm, j...@wilkins.id.au (John S. Wilkins) wrote:

> John Harshman <jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> > On 2/25/13 3:02 PM, pnyikos wrote:
> ...
> > >>> A report in Science resolves the debate as to when the creature lived;
> > >>> it came about after the demise of dinosaurs.
>
> > >> This seems odd, considering the number of claimed Cretaceous placental
> > >> fossils.
>
> > > It also flies in the face of a huge number of estimates of divergence
> > > time in that website you gave me on another thread, John.
>
> > >http://www.timetree.org/
>
> > That's largely because almost all of those estimates are molecular.
> > There are also issues with the tree topology used (really, apparently, a
> > classification inferred to represent a tree).
>
> John, have you turned to the Dark Transformed Side?

John, would you mind putting that last comment into self-explanatory
English?

By the way, it seems that extant birds are also widely believed to
have evolved from a single common post-KT ancestor. Here is a reply
to me back in 2000 by Harshman's old nemesis, Cal King:


In article <85dfl0$18...@theusc.csd.sc.edu>, nyi...@math.sc.edu (Peter
Nyikos) wrote:
> get...@nobull.net (Cal King) writes:
>
>>Since the radiation of modern orders occurred in the Tertiary, there really
>>isn't any incontrovertible Neornitheans in the Cretaceous. There were
>>numerous Ornithurine birds in the Cretaceous, but these were, according to
>>Feduccia, only "transitional shorebirds"
>
>What about the Charadriiformes? Kenneth Kinman says they
>are uncontroversial modern birds of the Cretaceous.
>
>Peter Nyikos -- standard disclaimer --
>Professor, Dept. of Mathematics
>University of South Carolina
>Columbia, SC 29208

Feduccia (1996) calls them "transitional shorebirds". This group
appeared to
have been the only group of birds to have survived the K-T holocaust.
My
speculation is that toothlessness is adaptive in the sand sifting
niche (no
sand will get between one's teeth if one has no teeth). Since the
transitional shorebirds are likely to be toothless, their status as
sole
survivors and ancestors of modern bird orders is the reason why all
modern
birds are toothless. From this group sprung the shorebird-modern
order
mosaics in the early Tertiary. The transitional shorebirds are
therefore
ancestral to the Neornithes, but not Neornitheans themselves.
========== end of included post,
Message-ID: <85fjp0$qsm$1...@bgtnsc02.worldnet.att.net>

Timely, eh? Harshman has been active on a thread he started, in which
he disses Feduccia.

Peter Nyikos

[John Harshman]

On 2/25/13 5:59 PM, pnyikos wrote:
> On Feb 25, 6:56 pm, j...@wilkins.id.au (John S. Wilkins) wrote:
>> John Harshman<jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>>> On 2/25/13 3:02 PM, pnyikos wrote:
>> ...
>>>>>> A report in Science resolves the debate as to when the creature lived;
>>>>>> it came about after the demise of dinosaurs.
>>
>>>>> This seems odd, considering the number of claimed Cretaceous placental
>>>>> fossils.
>>
>>>> It also flies in the face of a huge number of estimates of divergence
>>>> time in that website you gave me on another thread, John.
>>
>>>> http://www.timetree.org/
>>
>>> That's largely because almost all of those estimates are molecular.
>>> There are also issues with the tree topology used (really, apparently, a
>>> classification inferred to represent a tree).
>>
>> John, have you turned to the Dark Transformed Side?
>
> John, would you mind putting that last comment into self-explanatory
> English?
>
> By the way, it seems that extant birds are also widely believed to
> have evolved from a single common post-KT ancestor. Here is a reply
> to me back in 2000 by Harshman's old nemesis, Cal King:

However did you get from Cal King and Alan Feduccia to "widely believed"?

> Timely, eh? Harshman has been active on a thread he started, in which
> he disses Feduccia.

Why is it your practice to introduce anything at any time that you
happen to think of by free association?

[Roger Shrubber]

On Feb 26, 11:45�am, John Harshman <jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:

> You seem, if anything, more obsessive than ... and even less worth
> reading. Just saying.

No "just saying" about it. It's a very impressive feat.

[Ron O]

Just saying, if I'm the obsessive one why is it that Peter nearly
always initiates the exchange? Just check it out. Why is it that
Peter is the one that comes to me and tells me that he has posted
something bogus to someone else in some other thread? Who is guilty
of all the bogus post manipulations and prevarication, I mean all with
respect to our exchanges? Nyikos did accuse me of post manipulation
when I deleted his entire post that he had posted to you and I told
him to go back to the thread where he said that he would respond and
respond to my post in place. Who creates the bogus threads and side
threads? Just because I don't mind telling it to him straight doesn't
make me the obsessive one. What do you do in your responses to
Peter? You interact more with him than I do. Does that make you
obsessive, especially when he is calling you a liar and claiming that
he has put you in your place? You just don't call him an asshole
after 2 years of his bogus behavior. He posts that crap about you to
me and you take him to task for it. Just like you, if he gets in my
face I will respond to his nonsense. He hasn't written anything to me
that is of interest to me for pretty much over a year and a half.
Just the same old lies and past delusions.

Why do you keep responding to the clown? Is it obsessive to keep
responding to his "something rotten" type threads the way that you
do? Why did you respond to this thread?

Ron Okimoto

[Ron O]

Why don't you self evaluate this post. What kind of whack job would
do what you did to it? Start at the top and work your way down. You
can even go back to what you snipped out and lied about while you are
at it. Give one good reason why I would have made the claim about egg
laying and placentals if I had read the part about marsupials. It was
an obvious oversight on my part. I have absolutely no reason to make
the claim otherwise. Just think for a few seconds and your delusional
fog may clear. Why would I make that mistake on purpose? It was just
a dumb mistake. On the other hand your bogus behavior is obviously
intentional.

What a loser.

Ron Okimoto

[John Harshman]

Who said there had to be only one obsessive one? You guys feed on each
other.

> Why do you keep responding to the clown? Is it obsessive to keep
> responding to his "something rotten" type threads the way that you
> do? Why did you respond to this thread?

Occasionally he says something slightly interesting. Occasionally you do
too.

[jillery]

Not possible. This isn't the first time rockhead rejected another's
admission of error. Most likely it won't be the last.

[John S. Wilkins]

pnyikos <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

> Since it is almost a heresy
> among cladistic systematists to have trifurcations in a phylogenetic
> tree, there is no cause for surprise IMHO.

It's not heresy. It's a polytomy, which simply means that there is
insufficient data to make dichotomies. It's a statement of "insufficient
information to resolve". This is a virtue in a scientific discipline, I
woul dhave thought, that it refuses to make assertions in the basence of
evidence.

[John S. Wilkins]

One of the main claims of TC was that a classification (a cladogram) <>
a tree.

[Ron O]

I must really be undernourishing him. There will be weeks or months
between Peter's posts to me. He has posted more often in the last
couple of months, but I only think he is doing that because he has to
keep claiming that his knock down is coming even if he misses his
lastest self imposed deadline. You probably post an order of
magnitude more posts than I do to the guy that keeps calling you a
liar and worse. Which of you is the snack?

>
> > Why do you keep responding to the clown? �Is it obsessive to keep
> > responding to his "something rotten" type threads the way that you
> > do? �Why did you respond to this thread?
>
> Occasionally he says something slightly interesting. Occasionally you do
> too.

Occasionally, it happens to everyone, hopefully,

Ron Okimoto

[Ron O]

Since you are part of my cabal I will agree with you.

Ron Okimoto

[John Harshman]

On 2/26/13 3:49 PM, John S. Wilkins wrote:
> pnyikos<nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
>> Since it is almost a heresy
>> among cladistic systematists to have trifurcations in a phylogenetic
>> tree, there is no cause for surprise IMHO.
>
> It's not heresy. It's a polytomy, which simply means that there is
> insufficient data to make dichotomies. It's a statement of "insufficient
> information to resolve". This is a virtue in a scientific discipline, I
> woul dhave thought, that it refuses to make assertions in the basence of
> evidence.

There are two kinds of polytomies, called "hard" and "soft". You have
described a soft polytomy, for which there are presumed real
relationships but insufficient data to resolve them. A hard polytomy is
a real multifurcation, i.e. a population splitting into three or more
chunks at the same time. (Obviously, the two grade into each other, but
the terminology is still handy.)

[John S. Wilkins]

How do you know that a hard polytomy is hard?

[John Harshman]

On 2/26/13 8:14 PM, John S. Wilkins wrote:
> John Harshman<jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>
>> On 2/26/13 3:49 PM, John S. Wilkins wrote:
>>> pnyikos<nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Since it is almost a heresy
>>>> among cladistic systematists to have trifurcations in a phylogenetic
>>>> tree, there is no cause for surprise IMHO.
>>>
>>> It's not heresy. It's a polytomy, which simply means that there is
>>> insufficient data to make dichotomies. It's a statement of "insufficient
>>> information to resolve". This is a virtue in a scientific discipline, I
>>> woul dhave thought, that it refuses to make assertions in the basence of
>>> evidence.
>>
>> There are two kinds of polytomies, called "hard" and "soft". You have
>> described a soft polytomy, for which there are presumed real
>> relationships but insufficient data to resolve them. A hard polytomy is
>> a real multifurcation, i.e. a population splitting into three or more
>> chunks at the same time. (Obviously, the two grade into each other, but
>> the terminology is still handy.)
>
> How do you know that a hard polytomy is hard?

If, after you have collected enough data, you still don't have clear
resolution. Of course, "enough data" is subjective. But it can be
quantified by simulation, which can put an upper bound on the time
between successive divergences. (The lower bound is of course zero.)
Also, if you get enough loci, you can test to see whether their
disagreements can be explained by lineage sorting with no bias toward
one tree. So there are ways, but they still involve a continuum, and
there is no objective dividing line.

[John S. Wilkins]

So it's really "hard enough for government work"? Basically a dichotomy
is a statement that there is structure in the data. If there is none,
can you replace the lack of data with prior models of how evolution must
have proceeded?

[John Harshman]

It isn't clear to me what you're saying, but it sounds nasty.

[Bob Casanova]

On Tue, 26 Feb 2013 20:29:49 -0800, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by John Harshman
<jhar...@pacbell.net>:

Serious question: How does the Lake Victoria multi-species
cichlid population fit this? Is it considered to be the
result of an essentially-simultaneous multifurcation, a
rapid series of bifurcations, or something else?

ISTM that a "new" group of niches (such as Lake Victoria)
would encourage simultaneous diversification in an
introduced population; is this incorrect?
--

Bob C.

"Evidence confirming an observation is
evidence that the observation is wrong."

- McNameless

[John Harshman]

I recall that there is very little genetic divergence, but I don't
remember the answer to your question. Craig Moritz, I believe, is the
author to look up.

> ISTM that a "new" group of niches (such as Lake Victoria)
> would encourage simultaneous diversification in an
> introduced population; is this incorrect?

Sure, though generally one would also need some engine of geographic
isolation too.

[Bob Casanova]

On Wed, 27 Feb 2013 15:08:14 -0800, the following appeared

Not the C/W singer, I assume... ;-)

OK; thanks.

Just looked him up (Google and Amazon), and it looks like
his only available book is "Molecular Systematics", which
appears to be well above my level of comfort and education
in biology, as do his cited papers. Oh, well...

>> ISTM that a "new" group of niches (such as Lake Victoria)
>> would encourage simultaneous diversification in an
>> introduced population; is this incorrect?
>
>Sure, though generally one would also need some engine of geographic
>isolation too.

I was thinking of "niche" as including distinct
environments: different depths, temperatures, available
cover, etc, all of which are available and fairly constant
in a large equatorial lake (Victoria is at 1 deg. S
latitude), and which, I would think, would mimic the effects
of geographic isolation, much as "sky islands" do.

[pnyikos]

On Feb 25, 9:55 pm, John Harshman <jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> On 2/25/13 5:59 PM, pnyikos wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Feb 25, 6:56 pm, j...@wilkins.id.au (John S. Wilkins) wrote:
> >> John Harshman<jharsh...@pacbell.net>  wrote:
> >>> On 2/25/13 3:02 PM, pnyikos wrote:
> >> ...
> >>>>>> A report in Science resolves the debate as to when the creature lived;
> >>>>>> it came about after the demise of dinosaurs.
>
> >>>>> This seems odd, considering the number of claimed Cretaceous placental
> >>>>> fossils.
>
> >>>> It also flies in the face of a huge number of estimates of divergence
> >>>> time in that website you gave me on another thread, John.
>
> >>>>http://www.timetree.org/
>
> >>> That's largely because almost all of those estimates are molecular.
> >>> There are also issues with the tree topology used (really, apparently, a
> >>> classification inferred to represent a tree).
>
> >> John, have you turned to the Dark Transformed Side?
>
> > John, would you mind putting that last comment into self-explanatory
> > English?
>
> > By the way, it seems that extant birds are also widely believed to
> > have evolved from a single common post-KT ancestor.  Here is a reply
> > to me back in 2000 by Harshman's old nemesis, Cal King:
>
> However did you get from Cal King and Alan Feduccia to "widely believed"?

I didn't, turkey, the thing I posted just happened to be the concisest
and most specific thing I've seen on the subject.

Would you like to see more? All you have to do is to go on record as
disbelieving it, and I'll oblige you.

> > Timely, eh?  Harshman has been active on a thread he started, in which
> > he disses Feduccia.

Methinks the Harshman doth protest too much below:

> Why is it your practice to introduce anything at any time that you
> happen to think of by free association?

My, my, my! It looks like I've touched a raw nerve in you.

What could be more natural than to free associate Neornithes with
Plancentalia when there is such a juicy connection?

Could it be that you were hoping that Feduccia thread you started
would NEVER look at any specific bits of foolishness by Feduccia?

Could it be that you hadn't read the article in _Auk_ yourself, but
saw red when you saw it and dashed off a letter to the editors devoid
of any reasoned criticism?

This could easily be tested by you posting that letter. Do you have
the integrity to do that?

Peter Nyikos

[John Harshman]

Yes, I would like to see the "widely believed".

>>> Timely, eh? Harshman has been active on a thread he started, in which
>>> he disses Feduccia.
>
> Methinks the Harshman doth protest too much below:
>
>> Why is it your practice to introduce anything at any time that you
>> happen to think of by free association?
>
> My, my, my! It looks like I've touched a raw nerve in you.

Yes, you annoy me whenever you launch into your random digressions. Is
that your intention?

> What could be more natural than to free associate Neornithes with
> Plancentalia when there is such a juicy connection?
>
> Could it be that you were hoping that Feduccia thread you started
> would NEVER look at any specific bits of foolishness by Feduccia?

No, it couldn't be.

> Could it be that you hadn't read the article in _Auk_ yourself, but
> saw red when you saw it and dashed off a letter to the editors devoid
> of any reasoned criticism?

No, it couldn't be. Have you read the article? It has nothing whatsoever
to do with Neornithes.

> This could easily be tested by you posting that letter. Do you have
> the integrity to do that?

I don't see integrity has anything to do with it. Nor do I see that you
have any right to see a letter I wrote to another person. But I will
repeat my reasoned criticism if you like, to the extent I can remember
it. If I recall, my major point was that Feduccia conflates phylogeny
with evolutionary scenarios; specifically, assumes a nonexistent,
necessary linkage between birds as theropods, a ground-up origin of
flight, and the absence of secondarily flightless birds in the Mesozoic.
A second point, which I have already mentioned to you, is that his story
has changed radically, and that all the evidence formerly adduced that
maniraptorans were unrelated to birds has disappeared now that he thinks
maniraptorans aren't dinosaurs.

So are you ever going to return to anything relating to the actual
subject of Feduccia's rant? So far all you have is veiled accusations of
malfeasance on my part for one thing or another and irrelevant mentions
of questions in later bird evolution.

[pnyikos]

As do the two of us. In fact, you and I have always fed off each
other more than Ron O and I have with each other.

The drop in frequency of your replies to me and the drop in frequency
of my replies to Ron O over the past ca. 8 months have pretty much
gone hand in hand, but that is a correlation without any causal
connection.

> > Why do you keep responding to the clown? �Is it obsessive to keep
> > responding to his "something rotten" type threads the way that you
> > do? �Why did you respond to this thread?

Ron O is asking you questions which he should also be asking himself,
albeit with different threads as the topic.

I could say more about this, but you dontwanna hearaboutit, right?

>
> Occasionally he says something slightly interesting. Occasionally you do
> too.

Occasionally you do too. However, you seem to enjoy catty remarks,
even on supposedly on-topic threads you introduce, more than you
enjoy on-topic discussion.

Case in point: the thread, "Alan Feduccia again."

I had to really irritate you on this thread of mine before you did
here what you repeatedly refused to do on that thread of yours, which
was to list some concrete objections you had to the article by
Feduccia.

That was what that *your* thread was supposedly about--or would have
been if this were sci.bio.evolution instead of talk.origins.

Evidently you are like an oyster, needing to be irritated to a
nontrivial extent before you produce pearls.

Peter Nyikos

[John Harshman]

On 3/5/13 8:15 AM, pnyikos wrote:

> Evidently you are like an oyster, needing to be irritated to a
> nontrivial extent before you produce pearls.

I eagerly await the day you actually say anything.

[pnyikos]

On Feb 26, 10:34�am, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 25 Feb 2013 17:45:54 -0800, John Harshman

> <jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> >On 2/25/13 3:53 PM, Ron O wrote:
> >> On Feb 25, 1:59 pm, pnyikos<nyik...@bellsouth.net> �wrote:
> >>> In the February 8 issue of _Science_, an international team of
> >>> researchers published a paper that is sure to ignite a lot of
> >>> controversy among paleontologists and people in related fields. �This
> >>> is because they place the last common ancestor of ALL living placental
> >>> mammals after the extinction of the dinosaurs.
>
> >>> I will have more to say about this controversy later in this thread,
> >>> but in this first post I am focusing on an "intramural" controversy.
> >>> It was ignited by the following passage in a BBC report on the
> >>> article.
>
> >>> � �"Placental mammals - as opposed to the kind that lay eggs,
> >>> � � such as the platypus, or carry young in pouches,
> >>> � � such as the kangaroo - are an extraordinarily diverse group
> >>> � � of animals with more than 5,000 species today."
> >>> --http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21350900

> >>> In contrast, Ron Okimoto posted the following claim about the same
> >>> _Science_ article:

Ron O belatedly admitted that he wouldn't have posted this if he had
actually read the BBC report that the thread he was replying to was
all about:

> >>> � �"The article is lumping marsupial and eutherian placental

> >>> � � mammals together and is talking about the ancestor
> >>> � � between egg laying mammals like monotremes and
> >>> � � the placentals like marsupials and eutherians. �It states
> >>> � � that it is talking about the ancestor that separated us from
> >>> � � our egg laying ancestors."

Of course, that leaves the impenetrable mystery of why Ron O posted
the above.

Perhaps it is because he loves to make up descriptions of things he
knows nothing about, like the _Science_ article (or the BBC article,
hard to say which).

That would explain the content of almost all his replies to me.

[snip]

> >> Now that I see what you are yammering about, I missed the last part of
> >> the quote that included marsupials. �I didn't know that I had missed
> >> it. �So what? �I thought that they were talking about the difference
> >> between egglayers and placental mammals. �I admit that I got it wrong,
> >> and it was just a mistake of not reading the article carefully enough.

Only a mentally unhinged or low-intelligence person would make up the
statement that Ron O did after reading anything in the article, after
being told by Harshman that he was using "placental" in a different
way than the accepted usage among biologists.

[off-topic rant by Ron O deleted here]

> >You seem, if anything, more obsessive than Peter and even less worth
> >reading. Just saying.
>
> Not possible. �This isn't the first time rockhead rejected another's
> admission of error. �Most likely it won't be the last.

This is like saying "This isn't the first time the insurance company
has raised Ron O's premium after he admitted to his negligence having
caused an automobile accident."

Of course, jillery cleverly worded her statement to create a totally
different impression, but the actual events are much closer to the
connotations of my analogy.

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

On Feb 26, 6:49�pm, j...@wilkins.id.au (John S. Wilkins) wrote:

> pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> > Since it is almost a heresy
> > among cladistic systematists to have trifurcations in a phylogenetic
> > tree, there is no cause for surprise IMHO.
>
> It's not heresy. It's a polytomy, which simply means that there is
> insufficient data to make dichotomies. It's a statement of "insufficient
> information to resolve".

I was exaggerating for effect. I believe it is fair to say that
cladists do want to resolve polytomies, and aren't satisfied until
they succeed.

> This is a virtue in a scientific discipline, I
> woul dhave thought, that it refuses to make assertions in the basence of
> evidence.

Of sufficient evidence, anyway.

This is a good description of my behavior in assessing the claims of
some people about prawnster and Giwer, and a number of others
generally held in contempt, but here in talk.origins that is widely
considered to be a vice rather than a virtue.

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

Actually, Shrubber is the only non-creationist (besides myself) whom
I've seen really attacking Ron O, as opposed to the casual criticism
Harshman has leveled at him on this thread.

And so, Shrubber is the last person besides Glenn and Nick Keighley
that I would suspect of being in Ron O's cabal.

In fact, I don't think anyone but jillery (besides Ron O himself) is
in that cabal at the present time.

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

On Mar 5, 11:20 am, John Harshman <jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> On 3/5/13 8:15 AM, pnyikos wrote:
>
> > Evidently you are like an oyster, needing to be irritated to a
> > nontrivial extent before you produce pearls.

I assume the following only refers to the Feduccia article. Otherwise
it would be a really childish, yea infantile, put-down:

> I eagerly await the day you actually say anything.

Turnabout is fair play. I stalled discussing the article until now,
but now that you finally seem interested in discussing your actual
objections to the article, I will begin the discussion later
today. .

However, I will start a new thread to do it, inasmuch as yours has
grown to over 275 mostly unrelated posts, thanks in part to your
continuing preference for *ad hominem* attacks on it.

Peter Nyikos

Peter Nyikos

[Klaus Hellnick]

"pnyikos" wrote in message
news:ba322d5c-ff51-4e98...@y4g2000yqa.googlegroups.com...

"By the way, it seems that extant birds are also widely believed to
have evolved from a single common post-KT ancestor. Here is a reply
to me back in 2000 by Harshman's old nemesis, Cal King:"

Bullshit!!!
Ducks, parrots, rattites and others already had diversified before the K-T
extinction.
This is what is widely believed.
You quote two well known crackpots, who contradict each other.
Klaus

[Ron O]

On Mar 5, 10:39 am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> On Feb 26, 8:17 pm, Ron O <rokim...@cox.net> wrote:
>
> > On Feb 25, 8:54 pm, Roger Shrubber <rog.shrub...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > On Feb 26, 11:45 am, John Harshman <jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>
> > > > You seem, if anything, more obsessive than ... and even less worth
> > > > reading. Just saying.
>
> > > No "just saying" about it. It's a very impressive feat.
>
> > Since you are part of my cabal I will agree with you.
>
> > Ron Okimoto
>
> Actually, Shrubber is the only non-creationist (besides myself) whom
> I've seen really attacking Ron O, as opposed to the casual criticism
> Harshman has leveled at him on this thread.

Is this some type of change of heart?

>
> And so, Shrubber is the last person besides Glenn and Nick Keighley
> that I would suspect of being in Ron O's cabal.
>
> In fact, I don't think anyone but jillery (besides Ron O himself) is
> in that cabal at the present time.

Damn, I guess my cabal is falling apart. There used to be, at least
half a dozen involved, and I'm pretty sure Roger was on the list at
one time.

Ron Okimoto

>
> Peter Nyikos

[Glenn]

"pnyikos" <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message news:723788f2-34c5-4567...@y4g2000yqa.googlegroups.com...

I'd venture to say that everyone thinks your head is in your cabal.

[Paul J Gans]

Ron O <roki...@cox.net> wrote:
>On Mar 5, 10:39?am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

Don't worry, Ron. The Cabal is seasonal. It will be back.

--
--- Paul J. Gans

[Bob Berger]

In article <kh6dtn$mj$7...@reader1.panix.com>, Paul J Gans says...

Until it does, we'll just have to put up with reruns. That's the trouble with
Cabalvision.

[jillery]

On Tue, 5 Mar 2013 18:16:35 -0800 (PST), Ron O <roki...@cox.net>
wrote:

But we'll always have Paris.

[Ron O]

On Mar 5, 10:55�pm, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 5 Mar 2013 18:16:35 -0800 (PST), Ron O <rokim...@cox.net>

We don't need any more fog to walk into.

Ron Okimoto

[Ron O]

On Mar 5, 10:14�pm, Bob Berger <Bob_mem...@newsguy.com> wrote:
> In article <kh6dtn$m...@reader1.panix.com>, Paul J Gans says...

As long as we don't resort to cabalism we should survive.

Ron Okimoto

[Ron O]

Now, you are just pouring salt in the wound. What the cabal needs is
an anti-Nyikos pepper spray, or an IC rodent trap.

Ron Okimoto

[pnyikos]

On Mar 5, 6:23�pm, "Klaus Hellnick" <khelln...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> "pnyikos" �wrote in message
>
> news:ba322d5c-ff51-4e98...@y4g2000yqa.googlegroups.com...
>
> "By the way, it seems that extant birds are also widely believed to
> have evolved from a single common post-KT ancestor. �Here is a reply
> to me back in 2000 by Harshman's old nemesis, Cal King:"
>
> Bullshit!!!
> Ducks, parrots, rattites and others already had diversified before the K-T
> extinction.
> This is what is widely believed.

And it is also widely believed that ungulates, insectivores,
Xenarthans, primates, and bats had done so as well.

Your point?

> You quote two well known crackpots, who contradict each other.
> Klaus

What are your credentials for making such a statement? Let's put them
to the test.

Let's see whether you can do better than Harshman in dealing with the
following post of mine from last year. His reply, to put it mildly,
was underwhelming.

On Apr 26, 6:41 pm, John Harshman <jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> pnyikos wrote:
> > On Apr 26, 10:52 am, John Harshman <jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> >> pnyikos wrote:
> >>> On Apr 24, 10:41 am, John Harshman <jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> >>>> pnyikos wrote:
> >>>>> John Harshman wrote:

> >>>>>> And doubtless there would be some
> >>>>>> other term for anything more closely related to Morganucodon than to
> >>>>>> Marmota.
> >>>>> Not if ranks were abolished. How would you quantify "more closely
> >>>>> related"?
> >>>> Surely you know this if you just think about it.
>
> >>> I have known since childhood that the Linnean classification has a
> >>> way. Your suggestions below are flawed.
>
> >> You have known wrong. Arbitrary dividing lines don't do a good job even
> >> of quantifying similarity, much less relationship.
>
> > The word "arbitrary" is extremely ambiguous. Put it this way: the
> > fewer and more insignificant the apomorphies, the smaller the Linnean
> > taxon. Thus the hypothetical young digger could be quite
> > communicative ("within error bars" to use an expression familiar to

> > you) if he said, "these morganucodonts are in the same subfamily as
> > Morganucodon, whereas the examples YOU name aren't even in the same
> > infraclass."
>
> I've asked you several times for the criteria you use to assign ranks to
> taxa. No response so far. How few is few? How insignificant is
> insignificant? How small is small?

I'm sure the systematists of old had a very good feel for this kind of
thing--just from a lifelong interest in the various Linnean taxa.
It's obvious, for instance, that the shoulder girdle of the platypus
should weigh far, far more in the classification than a dozen or so
mitochondrial genes.

These were presumably what led one article to classify it in a clade
with marsupials that excluded placentals. We've talked about this
before, and you agreed we shouldn't put too much faith in such
analyses.

Where the shoulder girdle is concerned, I'm not just talking about the
disappearance in all marsupials and placentals of the interclavicle
and procoracoid, primitive features shared by the platypus,
pelycosaurs, and therapsids.

One could write that off as homoplasy. But on p. 279 of Romer's
classic _Vertebrate Paleontology_, there is a picture of four shoulder
girdles, and the scapula of the "Virginia opossum" *Didelphis* has a
shape and mid-ridge that is very much like that of all placentals that
I have ever seen, while the one for the platypus is much more similar
to that of the pelycosaur and the therapsid that is in the
reproduction.

That feature, all by itself, cries out for putting marsupials and
placentals in a clade that excludes the platypus, and it would take a
huge number of countervailing characters to overturn that assessment,
unless they happened to be as striking as the shoulder girdle
differences.


> >>>> "Sharing a more recent
> >>>> common ancestor"
> >>> That might backfire. The way the tree of life is rooted, Morganucodon
> >>> might not have a common ancestor with anything except the huge clade
> >>> in which Mormota is located, of which the genus Morganucodon is thus
> >>> the sister group.
> >> I am unable to interpret that confusing statement. Everything has a
> >> common ancestor with everything else.
>
> > Sorry, I should have added "more recent" between "might not have a"
> > and "common ancestor". It was late and I was getting sleepy.
>
> Still doesn't make sense.
Morganucodon had various common ancestors with everything else [except
maybe prokaryotes] but none of them might have been more recent than
the one it shared with all of Mammalia and most of "Mammaliforma".

Does this still not make sense to you?

[snip side issue which is sure to come up later, on a more appropriate
thread]

> >>> If what I said above is true, and Morganucodon had no descendants, the
> >>> least inclusive clade containing Morganucodon besides *Morganucodon*
> >>> itself, is the huge clade containing Eutheria, and probably
> >>> Metatheria.
> >> Better than that. Morganucodon is actually outside Mammalia as commonly
> >> defined these days (i.e. as a crown group). It's a mammaliaform. How is
> >> this a problem?
>
> > The concept of "mammaliform" could be a problem if the vexing question
> > of where monotremes belong takes yet another turn. Because then a lot
> > of "mammaliform" creatures -- essentially ALL known Jurassic mammals
> > -- could suddenly become part of Mammalia.
>
> Not a problem for me. Is it a problem for you?

No, because I keep carrying old paraphyletic groups around in my head,
and this only requires a minor adjustment for me.

> > In Romer's day, ALL Jurassic mammals then known were widely believed
> > to be in the crown group formed by the extant mammals. Romer himself
> > thought that there was good evidence that all known Jurassic mammals
> > were "more advanced" than monotremes, and hence "more closely related"
> > cladistically speaking, to placentals and marsupials.
>
> > Item: the molars of the Cretaceous monotreme *Steropodon* and even the
> > Miocene (or is it Pliocene? I forget.) platypus *Obdurodon* look more
> > like the teeth of the triconodont *Priacodon* than the molars of a
> > "pantothere" or a "symmetrodont" or those of a Metatherian or
> > Eutherian.

> > So, unless the countervailing evidence is strong, all of these
> > critters could become part of "Mammalia" from which (if Mammalia is a
> > crown group, as you say) they are currently excluded.
>
> Not a problem. Even if "look more like" is counted as a synapomorphy.
>
> > On the other hand, Morganucodon would probably continue to be
> > excluded, because the quadrate and articular bones have not yet become
> > the malleus and incus as they have in monotremes. This key change is
> > IMO the best way to define "Mammalia".

But -- stop the presses! Today I saw in Wikipedia that there is a
(controversial) theory that this changeover is a case of convergent
evolution between monotremes and other extant mammals. The references
are:

Rich, T. H.; Hopson, J. A.; Musser, A. M.; Flannery, T. F.; & Vickers-
Rich, P. (2005). "Independent origins of middle ear bones in
monotremes and therians.". Science (Science) 307 (5711): 910 -
914. doi:10.1126/science.1105717. PMID 15705848. 10.1126/science.
1105717.

^ "Comment on "Independent Origins of Middle Ear Bones in Monotremes
and Therians" (I)". Science Magazine. Retrieved 2007-10-21.

^ "Comment on "Independent Origins of Middle Ear Bones in Monotremes
and Therians" (II)". Science Magazine. Retrieved 2007-10-21.

When I get into the University, I'll see just how strong the _Science_
paywall is; if I can't see these items, I'll take a trek down to the
library, but perhaps not today.

If this theory triumphs, then the dividing line between traditional
Reptilia and Mammalia will have to be different from the one I was
using, because polyphyletic taxa were shunned by Linnean
paleontologists as much as they are by people who use
"phylogenetic" [read: cladistic] classifications.

Peter Nyikos

[jillery]

On Wed, 6 Mar 2013 04:26:01 -0800 (PST), Ron O <roki...@cox.net>
wrote:

Rock hounds.

[jillery]

On Wed, 6 Mar 2013 04:17:25 -0800 (PST), Ron O <roki...@cox.net>

Here's looking at you kid.

[pnyikos]

On Mar 1, 4:11�pm, John Harshman <jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> On 3/1/13 12:53 PM, pnyikos wrote:

> > On Feb 25, 9:55 pm, John Harshman<jharsh...@pacbell.net> �wrote:
> >> On 2/25/13 5:59 PM, pnyikos wrote:

> >>> By the way, it seems that extant birds are also widely believed to
> >>> have evolved from a single common post-KT ancestor. �Here is a reply
> >>> to me back in 2000 by Harshman's old nemesis, Cal King:
>
> >> However did you get from Cal King and Alan Feduccia to "widely believed"?
>
> > I didn't, turkey, the thing I posted just happened to be the concisest
> > and most specific thing I've seen on the subject.
>
> > Would you like to see more? �All you have to do is to go on record as
> > disbelieving it, and I'll oblige you.
>
> Yes, I would like to see the "widely believed".

Actions [or, in this case, omissions] speak louder than words; you did
not satisfy the sufficient condition I gave.

It isn't a necessary condition, but unless you oblige, this theme goes
on the back burner.

And it may be due to a semantic cofusion. When I say "widely
believed" I mean "believed by either a majority or a sizable
minority." If you thought I meant only the majority bit, perhaps this
will make you lose interest in the whole issue.

> >>> Timely, eh? �Harshman has been active on a thread he started, in which
> >>> he disses Feduccia.
>
> > Methinks the Harshman doth protest too much below:
>
> >> Why is it your practice to introduce anything at any time that you
> >> happen to think of by free association?
>
> > My, my, my! �It looks like I've touched a raw nerve in you.
>
> Yes, you annoy me whenever you launch into your random digressions. Is
> that your intention?

Grotesque use of "random" noted.

Those earlier "annoyances" only touched well-protected nerves. This
one is different, but it takes a trained eye to see it. Read on.

> > What could be more natural than to free associate Neornithes with
> > Plancentalia when there is such a juicy connection?
>
> > Could it be that you were hoping that Feduccia thread you started
> > would NEVER look at any specific bits of foolishness by Feduccia?
>
> No, it couldn't be.

Then why are you only revealing your disagreement with specific
aspects here rather than there?

> > Could it be that you hadn't read the article in _Auk_ yourself, but
> > saw red when you saw it and dashed off a letter to the editors devoid
> > of any reasoned criticism?
>
> No, it couldn't be. Have you read the article? It has nothing whatsoever
> to do with Neornithes.

I see you are not averse to "random" free associations yourself. Here
we are talking about Feduccia's "sins" in your eyes and you bring in
the word "Neornithes" which NOWHERE appears above.

>
> > This could easily be tested by you posting that letter. �Do you have
> > the integrity to do that?
>
> I don't see integrity has anything to do with it. Nor do I see that you
> have any right to see a letter I wrote to another person.

I said nothing about rights, you stuck-in-the-sixties old codger.
Unless they've replied, I see no harm in making your letter to them
public.

> But I will
> repeat my reasoned criticism if you like, to the extent I can remember
> it.

++++++++++++++++++++++++ Harshman posting style on

Yes, I'd like for you to do so. Let me know when you begin.

++++++++++++++++++++++++ Harshman posting style off

See how raw that nerve was? I actually got you do do something you
adamantly refused to do in the thread that you set up for dealing with
Feduccia's article.

> If I recall, my major point was that Feduccia conflates phylogeny
> with evolutionary scenarios;

I don't see how anyone with more than 1% of his training could
possibly do so. What you say below is unrelated to this bizarre
claim.

> specifically, assumes a nonexistent,
> necessary linkage between birds as theropods, a ground-up origin of
> flight, and the absence of secondarily flightless birds in the Mesozoic.

I see that he says the lattter two are conclusions "based on" the
thesis that "birds are dinosaurs" [note, "dinosaurs," not
"theropods"], but he is attempting to characterize the thought
processes of the movers and shakers who accept that "birds are
dinosaurs" is established fact.

Strangely enough, I found that Robert T. Bakker, in his 1986 book _The
Dinosaur Heresies_, does NOT that linkage; he even praises Feduccia on
p.319 of my copy. I had been unaware of this before today, because
he only refers to Feduccia in the text as "an ornothologist [sic.]
from North Carolina" and it was only a few days ago that I learned of
Feduccia's whereabouts from the article in _The Auk_.

Anyway, Bakker says that Feduccia was partly instrumental in his re-
conversion to the then-reigning orthodoxy that *Archaeopteryx* was a
"climbing and gliding flyer".

The other big surprise this morning came when I found that he nowhere
endorses the claim that dinosaurs had feathers, despite the fact that
he did a cover article for Scientific American back in 1975 in which
one of the pictures was a drawing labeled "feathered dinosaur".

How "mainstream" is Bakker these days?

> A second point, which I have already mentioned to you, is that his story
> has changed radically, and that all the evidence formerly adduced that
> maniraptorans were unrelated to birds has disappeared now that he thinks
> maniraptorans aren't dinosaurs.

He never comes out and says that in the article, although he does hint
at it several times. Do you know of a reference where he actually
comes out and says it?

> So are you ever going to return to anything relating to the actual
> subject of Feduccia's rant?

I was way ahead of you in the original thread, and I'm way ahead of
you now, by the looks of it.

Peter Nyikos

[Burkhard]

On 6 Mar, 15:59, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 6 Mar 2013 04:17:25 -0800 (PST), Ron O <rokim...@cox.net>

What, he is looking at my kit? Pervert!

[Paul J Gans]

You meant repuns, didn't you?

[Paul J Gans]

jillery <69jp...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Tue, 5 Mar 2013 18:16:35 -0800 (PST), Ron O <roki...@cox.net>
>wrote:

>>On Mar 5, 10:39?am, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

>>> On Feb 26, 8:17?pm, Ron O <rokim...@cox.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> > On Feb 25, 8:54 pm, Roger Shrubber <rog.shrub...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> > > On Feb 26, 11:45 am, John Harshman <jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> > > > You seem, if anything, more obsessive than ... and even less worth
>>> > > > reading. Just saying.
>>>
>>> > > No "just saying" about it. It's a very impressive feat.
>>>
>>> > Since you are part of my cabal I will agree with you.
>>>
>>> > Ron Okimoto
>>>
>>> Actually, Shrubber is the only non-creationist (besides myself) whom
>>> I've seen really attacking Ron O, as opposed to the casual criticism
>>> Harshman has leveled at him on this thread.
>>
>>Is this some type of change of heart?
>>
>>>
>>> And so, Shrubber is the last person besides Glenn and Nick Keighley
>>> that I would suspect of being in Ron O's cabal.
>>>
>>> In fact, I don't think anyone but jillery (besides Ron O himself) is
>>> in that cabal at the present time.
>>
>>Damn, I guess my cabal is falling apart. There used to be, at least
>>half a dozen involved, and I'm pretty sure Roger was on the list at
>>one time.

>But we'll always have Paris.

[John Harshman]

On 3/6/13 9:47 AM, pnyikos wrote:
> On Mar 1, 4:11 pm, John Harshman<jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>> On 3/1/13 12:53 PM, pnyikos wrote:
>
>>> On Feb 25, 9:55 pm, John Harshman<jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>>>> On 2/25/13 5:59 PM, pnyikos wrote:
>
>>>>> By the way, it seems that extant birds are also widely believed to
>>>>> have evolved from a single common post-KT ancestor. Here is a reply
>>>>> to me back in 2000 by Harshman's old nemesis, Cal King:
>>
>>>> However did you get from Cal King and Alan Feduccia to "widely believed"?
>>
>>> I didn't, turkey, the thing I posted just happened to be the concisest
>>> and most specific thing I've seen on the subject.
>>
>>> Would you like to see more? All you have to do is to go on record as
>>> disbelieving it, and I'll oblige you.
>>
>> Yes, I would like to see the "widely believed".
>
> Actions [or, in this case, omissions] speak louder than words; you did
> not satisfy the sufficient condition I gave.
>
> It isn't a necessary condition, but unless you oblige, this theme goes
> on the back burner.

Sometimes you are truly appalling.

> And it may be due to a semantic cofusion. When I say "widely
> believed" I mean "believed by either a majority or a sizable
> minority." If you thought I meant only the majority bit, perhaps this
> will make you lose interest in the whole issue.

Let me disbelieve that a sizable minority (of what group?) believes that
Aves (or Neornithes if that's what you prefer, in any rate the crown
group) originated in the Cenozoic.

>>>>> Timely, eh? Harshman has been active on a thread he started, in which
>>>>> he disses Feduccia.
>>
>>> Methinks the Harshman doth protest too much below:
>>
>>>> Why is it your practice to introduce anything at any time that you
>>>> happen to think of by free association?
>>
>>> My, my, my! It looks like I've touched a raw nerve in you.
>>
>> Yes, you annoy me whenever you launch into your random digressions. Is
>> that your intention?
>
> Grotesque use of "random" noted.
>
> Those earlier "annoyances" only touched well-protected nerves. This
> one is different, but it takes a trained eye to see it. Read on.

Truly appalling I said, and truly appalling I meant.

>>> What could be more natural than to free associate Neornithes with
>>> Plancentalia when there is such a juicy connection?
>>
>>> Could it be that you were hoping that Feduccia thread you started
>>> would NEVER look at any specific bits of foolishness by Feduccia?
>>
>> No, it couldn't be.
>
> Then why are you only revealing your disagreement with specific
> aspects here rather than there?

No particular reason. And yes, it is paranoid to find pattern where
there is none. That's a proper use of the term.

>>> Could it be that you hadn't read the article in _Auk_ yourself, but
>>> saw red when you saw it and dashed off a letter to the editors devoid
>>> of any reasoned criticism?
>>
>> No, it couldn't be. Have you read the article? It has nothing whatsoever
>> to do with Neornithes.
>
> I see you are not averse to "random" free associations yourself. Here
> we are talking about Feduccia's "sins" in your eyes and you bring in
> the word "Neornithes" which NOWHERE appears above.

Are you or are you not talking about crown-group birds? That has nothing
at all to do with Feduccia's article.

>>> This could easily be tested by you posting that letter. Do you have
>>> the integrity to do that?
>>
>> I don't see integrity has anything to do with it. Nor do I see that you
>> have any right to see a letter I wrote to another person.
>
> I said nothing about rights, you stuck-in-the-sixties old codger.
> Unless they've replied, I see no harm in making your letter to them
> public.

I have non interest in doing so, and I don't have a copy anyway.

>> But I will
>> repeat my reasoned criticism if you like, to the extent I can remember
>> it.
>
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++ Harshman posting style on
>
> Yes, I'd like for you to do so. Let me know when you begin.
>
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++ Harshman posting style off
>
> See how raw that nerve was? I actually got you do do something you
> adamantly refused to do in the thread that you set up for dealing with
> Feduccia's article.

Again, you are so very bad at discerning other people's attitudes and
emotional motives that you really should stop trying to do it.

>> If I recall, my major point was that Feduccia conflates phylogeny
>> with evolutionary scenarios;
>
> I don't see how anyone with more than 1% of his training could
> possibly do so. What you say below is unrelated to this bizarre
> claim.

Only because you appear not to understand it. Birds are theropods:
phylogeny. Ground-up vs. trees-down or secondarily vs. primarily
flightless maniraptorans: evolutionary scenarios. He assumes that one
implies or requires the other: conflation. And what you don't see is
hardly relevant.

>> specifically, assumes a nonexistent,
>> necessary linkage between birds as theropods, a ground-up origin of
>> flight, and the absence of secondarily flightless birds in the Mesozoic.
>
> I see that he says the lattter two are conclusions "based on" the
> thesis that "birds are dinosaurs" [note, "dinosaurs," not
> "theropods"], but he is attempting to characterize the thought
> processes of the movers and shakers who accept that "birds are
> dinosaurs" is established fact.

He is wrong about the thought processes of the movers and shakers. More
importantly, he's wrong about any logical linkage.

> Strangely enough, I found that Robert T. Bakker, in his 1986 book _The
> Dinosaur Heresies_, does NOT that linkage; he even praises Feduccia on
> p.319 of my copy. I had been unaware of this before today, because
> he only refers to Feduccia in the text as "an ornothologist [sic.]
> from North Carolina" and it was only a few days ago that I learned of
> Feduccia's whereabouts from the article in _The Auk_.
>
> Anyway, Bakker says that Feduccia was partly instrumental in his re-
> conversion to the then-reigning orthodoxy that *Archaeopteryx* was a
> "climbing and gliding flyer".
>
> The other big surprise this morning came when I found that he nowhere
> endorses the claim that dinosaurs had feathers, despite the fact that
> he did a cover article for Scientific American back in 1975 in which
> one of the pictures was a drawing labeled "feathered dinosaur".
>
> How "mainstream" is Bakker these days?

Not very. He never was. Bakker is a professional iconoclast. He has a
personal theory about everything. It happens that a few of his personal
theories have entered the mainstream, e.g. the idea that at least some
non-avian dinosaurs were warm-blooded. The claim that non-avian
dinosaurs had feathers of course postdates Bakker's book. Is the
feathered dinosaur perchance Archaeopteryx?

None of this seems very relevant to Feduccia.

>> A second point, which I have already mentioned to you, is that his story
>> has changed radically, and that all the evidence formerly adduced that
>> maniraptorans were unrelated to birds has disappeared now that he thinks
>> maniraptorans aren't dinosaurs.
>
> He never comes out and says that in the article, although he does hint
> at it several times. Do you know of a reference where he actually
> comes out and says it?

Says that maniraptorans aren't dinosaurs? It's all over that article.
Are you looking for a place where he says exactly those words in exactly
that order, or what?

>> So are you ever going to return to anything relating to the actual
>> subject of Feduccia's rant?
>
> I was way ahead of you in the original thread, and I'm way ahead of
> you now, by the looks of it.

It would be well if you would stop these inflated boasts.

[jillery]

Hard to argue with that 8-)

[pnyikos]

On Mar 6, 2:06 pm, John Harshman <jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> On 3/6/13 9:47 AM, pnyikos wrote:
> > On Mar 1, 4:11 pm, John Harshman<jharsh...@pacbell.net>  wrote:
> >> On 3/1/13 12:53 PM, pnyikos wrote:
>
> >>> On Feb 25, 9:55 pm, John Harshman<jharsh...@pacbell.net>    wrote:
> >>>> On 2/25/13 5:59 PM, pnyikos wrote:
>
> >>>>> By the way, it seems that extant birds are also widely believed to
> >>>>> have evolved from a single common post-KT ancestor.  Here is a reply
> >>>>> to me back in 2000 by Harshman's old nemesis, Cal King:
>
> >>>> However did you get from Cal King and Alan Feduccia to "widely believed"?
>
> >>> I didn't, turkey, the thing I posted just happened to be the concisest
> >>> and most specific thing I've seen on the subject.
>
> >>> Would you like to see more?  All you have to do is to go on record as
> >>> disbelieving it, and I'll oblige you.
>
> >> Yes, I would like to see the "widely believed".
>
> > Actions [or, in this case, omissions] speak louder than words; you did
> > not satisfy the sufficient condition I gave.
>
> > It isn't a necessary condition, but unless you oblige, this theme goes
> > on the back burner.
>
> Sometimes you are truly appalling.

That makes two of us, then. :-)

OK, I'll give you a little hint. Read the Feb 8 article we're
discussing on this thread, and you'll find that at least one of the
references endorses this hypothesis.

> > And it may be due to a semantic cofusion.  When I say "widely
> > believed" I mean "believed by either a majority or a sizable
> > minority."  If you thought I meant only the majority bit, perhaps this
> > will make you lose interest in the whole issue.
>
> Let me disbelieve that a sizable minority (of what group?) believes that
> Aves (or Neornithes if that's what you prefer, in any rate the crown
> group) originated in the Cenozoic.

Do you believe it had branched off in several directions before the
Cenozoic, each of which has descendants today? Sorry, you'll have to
come out and say it before I go beyond the above hint this week.

> >>>>> Timely, eh?  Harshman has been active on a thread he started, in which
> >>>>> he disses Feduccia.
>
> >>> Methinks the Harshman doth protest too much below:
>
> >>>> Why is it your practice to introduce anything at any time that you
> >>>> happen to think of by free association?
>
> >>> My, my, my!  It looks like I've touched a raw nerve in you.
>
> >> Yes, you annoy me whenever you launch into your random digressions. Is
> >> that your intention?
>
> > Grotesque use of "random" noted.
>
> > Those earlier "annoyances" only touched well-protected nerves.  This
> > one is different, but it takes a trained eye to see it.  Read on.
>
> Truly appalling I said, and truly appalling I meant.

Go soak your head.

[Remainder deleted, to be replied to tomorrow. Duty calls.]

Peter Nyikos

[John Harshman]

How does "at least one reference" translate to "widely believed"?

>>> And it may be due to a semantic cofusion. When I say "widely
>>> believed" I mean "believed by either a majority or a sizable
>>> minority." If you thought I meant only the majority bit, perhaps this
>>> will make you lose interest in the whole issue.
>>
>> Let me disbelieve that a sizable minority (of what group?) believes that
>> Aves (or Neornithes if that's what you prefer, in any rate the crown
>> group) originated in the Cenozoic.
>
> Do you believe it had branched off in several directions before the
> Cenozoic, each of which has descendants today? Sorry, you'll have to
> come out and say it before I go beyond the above hint this week.

Yes. And this is indeed the current orthodoxy. If, for example, there is
a Cretaceous presbyornithid, that means there must have been at least 7
extant lineages during that time.

>>>>>>> Timely, eh? Harshman has been active on a thread he started, in which
>>>>>>> he disses Feduccia.
>>
>>>>> Methinks the Harshman doth protest too much below:
>>
>>>>>> Why is it your practice to introduce anything at any time that you
>>>>>> happen to think of by free association?
>>
>>>>> My, my, my! It looks like I've touched a raw nerve in you.
>>
>>>> Yes, you annoy me whenever you launch into your random digressions. Is
>>>> that your intention?
>>
>>> Grotesque use of "random" noted.
>>
>>> Those earlier "annoyances" only touched well-protected nerves. This
>>> one is different, but it takes a trained eye to see it. Read on.
>>
>> Truly appalling I said, and truly appalling I meant.
>
> Go soak your head.

This is not meant unkindly, at least not quite. The advice (to cease
imputing motives on the basis of posts, given that it's not one of your
skills) should be useful to you.

[pnyikos]

How does ZERO references by you undermine it?

Anyway, it turns out that I misread something in the middle of the
following article:

http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2666178.pdf?acceptTC=true

This is reference 10 in the Science article. It seemed to go beyond
what it says in the abstract, but then the promised "discussion below"
petered out.

Anyway, I do have other resources, but it will take a while to sift
through them. Next week my posting will be spotty at best due to it
being our Spring Break,

> >>> And it may be due to a semantic cofusion. �When I say "widely
> >>> believed" I mean "believed by either a majority or a sizable
> >>> minority." �If you thought I meant only the majority bit, perhaps this
> >>> will make you lose interest in the whole issue.
>
> >> Let me disbelieve that a sizable minority (of what group?) believes that
> >> Aves (or Neornithes if that's what you prefer, in any rate the crown
> >> group) originated in the Cenozoic.
>
> > Do you believe it had branched off in several directions before the
> > Cenozoic, each of which has descendants today? �Sorry, you'll have to
> > come out and say it before I go beyond the above hint this week.
>
> Yes. And this is indeed the current orthodoxy.
> If, for example, there is
> a Cretaceous presbyornithid, that means there must have been at least 7
> extant lineages during that time.
>

"orthodoxy" would seem to be a good word for this use of "must have".

Peter Nyikos

[John Harshman]

Doesn't. But you were promising to support your claim. Remember?

> Anyway, it turns out that I misread something in the middle of the
> following article:
>
> http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2666178.pdf?acceptTC=true
>
> This is reference 10 in the Science article. It seemed to go beyond
> what it says in the abstract, but then the promised "discussion below"
> petered out.
>
> Anyway, I do have other resources, but it will take a while to sift
> through them. Next week my posting will be spotty at best due to it
> being our Spring Break,
>
>>>>> And it may be due to a semantic cofusion. When I say "widely
>>>>> believed" I mean "believed by either a majority or a sizable
>>>>> minority." If you thought I meant only the majority bit, perhaps this
>>>>> will make you lose interest in the whole issue.
>>
>>>> Let me disbelieve that a sizable minority (of what group?) believes that
>>>> Aves (or Neornithes if that's what you prefer, in any rate the crown
>>>> group) originated in the Cenozoic.
>>
>>> Do you believe it had branched off in several directions before the
>>> Cenozoic, each of which has descendants today? Sorry, you'll have to
>>> come out and say it before I go beyond the above hint this week.
>>
>> Yes. And this is indeed the current orthodoxy.
>> If, for example, there is
>> a Cretaceous presbyornithid, that means there must have been at least 7
>> extant lineages during that time.
>
> "orthodoxy" would seem to be a good word for this use of "must have".

Only if you don't pay attention to meanings. What I mean is that a
Cretaceous presbyornithid necessarily implies at least 6 Cretaceous
lineages unless we are seriously wrong about bird phylogeny. You are
free to make the claim that we are wrong about bird phylogeny, and you
are free to make the claim that there are no Cretaceous presbyornithids,
but failing either of those you must accept the assertion. Well, I
suppose your third alternative would be to deny evolution, or logic, or
some other basic premise.

[pnyikos]

On Feb 26, 1:36 am, Ron O <rokim...@cox.net>
got back to his habit, strikingly manifested in the thread where I
remained strictly on topic while he went at me like the rabid dog that
he is, of ignoring essentially everything that I say and getting on
his soapbox.

> On Feb 25, 7:31 pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> > On Feb 25, 6:53 pm, Ron O <rokim...@cox.net> wrote:

> > > On Feb 25, 1:59 pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

I am deleting a good bit of earlier stuff here, but leaving in some
very significant passages.

> > > > In contrast, Ron Okimoto posted the following claim about the same
> > > > _Science_ article:
>
> > > > "The article is lumping marsupial and eutherian placental
> > > > mammals together and is talking about the ancestor
> > > > between egg laying mammals like monotremes and
> > > > the placentals like marsupials and eutherians. It states
> > > > that it is talking about the ancestor that separated us from
> > > > our egg laying ancestors."

[snip]
> > > > Finally, on February 14, I decided to try and clarify the situation,
> > > > replying to Ron O's post where he made the statement, saying *inter
> > > > alia*:
>
> > > > "Are you saying that Jason Palmer,
> > > > Science and technology reporter, BBC
> > > > News, got it all wrong?
> > > > ...
> > > > "I'd like to see you cite from the Science article itself
> > > > for this claim of yours."
> > > > --http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/d17ab2ed51527217

> > > > And I can categorically state that Jason Palmer got it right and Ron O
> > > > got it wrong. I'm not referring to Ron O's definition of "placental"
> > > > but what the whole theme of the article was.
>
> > > > The article places the LCA of the clade Placentalia in the Paleocene,
> > > > while dating the eutherian - marsupial split all the way back to the
> > > > Jurassic:
>
> > > >http://www.sciencemag.org/content/339/6120/662/F1.large.jpg


> > ________________excerpt from your reply__________
>
> > > > Do I care what your opinion is on this topic?
>
> > > You'd better care whether you are misrepresenting an article in
> > > _Science_, even if Satan himself [if there is such a being] suggests
> > > that this is what your are doing and shows how your summary disagrees
> > > with that of a BBC Science Writer.
>
> > > > Do you really believe what you wrote?
>
> > > Yes.
>
> > Another lie.
> > ====================== end of excerpt
from http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/7bb2afbb5087b927

> > I even left sci.bio.paleontology off the newsgroups so you wouldn't
> > get stuck on that, but you insisted on turning our exchange into an
> > off-topic slugfest anyway. Too bad I didn't play along, eh?

> > > Why is it important to you? If I thought that you had anything worth
> > > saying I would have read your stupid post,
>
> > None of my three posts were stupid, liar.
>
> > YOUR three replies to me were abysmally stupid.
>
> > [snip transparently phony, self-righteous, self-satisfied, self-
> > serving and utterly dishonest excuse]

You are so far gone, Ron O, that perhaps "self-worshipping" should be
added to the above list.

> > Peter Nyikos
>
> Why don't you self evaluate this post.

Why don't you even bother to READ it before posting such an idiotic
question?

> What kind of whack job would
> do what you did to it?  Start at the top and work your way down.

You evidently didn't practice what you preach, because you show NO
awareness of your slander "Another lie" in what you write below. As I
said (snipped out above):

> > You couldn't support that accusation of lying if your life savings
> > depended on it. Everything I wrote was every bit as factual as
> > today's post to which you are replying.

Now you come with another defamatory accusation of lying:

 >You
> can even go back to what you snipped out and lied about while you are
> at it.

You don't have the guts to name an alleged lie, do you?

> Give one good reason why I would have made the claim about egg
> laying and placentals if I had read the part about marsupials.

A madman like you doesn't need reasons to do anything; he just does
them.

Give me one good reason why you wrote what you did about the article
(preserved at the very beginning above).

Really, what kind of whack job would make up a silly story like that
out of thin air? Where's the passage in the article that could
possibly lead a sane person to post what you did?

> It was
> an obvious oversight on my part.  I have absolutely no reason to make
> the claim otherwise.

Leave off the "otherwise," you whining Uriah Heep analogue. It's very
true even without it.

>  Just think for a few seconds and your delusional
> fog may clear.
> Why would I make that mistake on purpose? It was just
> a dumb mistake.

Why don't YOU self evaluate what you are writing here, in the light of
what I wrote above?

Oh. Right. It would be completely out of character for a self-
satisfied madman like yourself.

>  On the other hand your bogus behavior is obviously
> intentional.
>
> What a loser.

Ollie: Projection is a way of life with Ron O.
Everything he writes about Peter in the last
two sentences should really be addressed to himself.
["Ollie" stands for OLI, Okimoto Logic Imitator.]

The only things Ollie said about you earlier that were objectionable
was Ollie's Ron O-imitating butcherings of the word "admits" and
"admitting". Otherwise, he was right, just as he is right now, and the
evidence is above, galore.

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

Getting back to on-topic commentary, on an article of last month.

On Feb 25, 4:56�pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> I have added sci.bio.paleontology. �This is the second post to this
> thread in talk.origins; the first had to do with a little "intramural"
> confusion exclusive to t.o.
>
> On Feb 25, 2:59 pm, pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> > In the February 8 issue of _Science_, an international team of
> > researchers published a paper that is sure to ignite a lot of
> > controversy among paleontologists and people in related fields. This
> > is because they place the last common ancestor of ALL living placental
> > mammals after the extinction of the dinosaurs.
>
> http://www.sciencemag.org/content/339/6120/662.full
>
> The full article is paywalled, but perhaps the evolutionary tree
> referenced at the end of this post is not.
>
> What is especially noteworthy is that the authors do NOT reassess the
> molecular evidence for this late date, but rely on fossil evidence
> (and perhaps some sophisticated morphological thinking in the
> supplementary article, which runs to 131 pages).
>
> And yet, the following website, also in a supplement to a _Science_
> article, claims the existence of a ca. 5-kilo condylarth and a
> taenolabid of the same size from 105.5 mya:
> http://www.sciencemag.org/content/suppl/2010/11/22/330.6008.1216.DC1/Smith.SOM.pdf
>
> Taenolabids may or may not be placentals

Oops, they are multituberculates. I was thinking of taenodonts.
These were omitted even from the 135 page supplement to this article

> -- they �have long been
> extinct -- but condylarths were primitive placentals related to extant
> ungulates.
>
> Even if this critter turns out to have been mis-identified, it seems
> very shaky to conclude from the dearth of clearly identifiable
> Cretaceous placental mammals that the LCA lived after the K-T
> extinction event.

As a matter of fact, the article shows quite a number of "ghost taxa"
within Placentalia, with a hypothesized separate evolution from the
rest of the tree [see url below] of decades in some cases, including
45 million for Tubulidentata.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/339/6120/662/F1.large.jpg

So it would seem a tad inconsistent to overturn huge amounts of
molecular data on the basis of a lack of fossils, which is what this
article does.

The biggest surprise in the tree is that *Rodhocetus*, generally
accepted to be even more certainly a whale than Ambulocetus, is put
outside the whole clade of "Euungulata".

Another shortcoming of the tree is that it excludes many extinct
taxa. No "native" South American ungulate groups [nothoungulates,
litopterns, xenungulates, astrapotheres, pyrotheres] and only a few
genera; and no pantodonts, no uintatheres, no taenodonts, no
tillodonts. Very strange, considering that it was fossils, not
genomes, that were used for coming up with the tree--and the dates.

Pantodonts, uintatheres, taenodonts, and tillodonts don't even figure
in the 135 page supplement. A disappointment.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
http://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/
nyikos @ math.sc.edu


> Isn't the conventional wisdom about the Cambrian explosion that the
> many phyla first appearing then had a long evolutionary history which
> simply hasn't shown up in the fossils we have now? �Why such a
> different conclusion about the LCA of living placentals?

>
> > The article places the LCA of the clade Placentalia in the Paleocene,
> > while dating the eutherian - marsupial split all the way back to the
> > Jurassic:
>
> >http://www.sciencemag.org/content/339/6120/662/F1.large.jpg
>

> This can be magnified further if the details are still hard to read.
>
> �Peter Nyikos
> �Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> �University of South Carolinahttp://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/
> �nyikos @ math.sc.edu

[J.J. O'Shea]

On Wed, 6 Mar 2013 15:06:59 -0400, John Harshman wrote
(in article <namdnYV86Ox...@giganews.com>):

>> Actions [or, in this case, omissions] speak louder than words; you did
>> not satisfy the sufficient condition I gave.

Who cares about your conditions, Peter?

>>
>> It isn't a necessary condition, but unless you oblige, this theme goes
>> on the back burner.
>
> Sometimes you are truly appalling.

Only sometimes? Are you sure about that?



--
email to oshea dot j dot j at gmail dot com.

[Walter Bushell]

In article <UZOdnYdOWvx...@giganews.com>,
John Harshman <jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote:

> Cretaceous presbyornithid

Cretaceous Presbyterians? I had *no* idea they went so far back.

--
Gambling with Other People's Money is the meth of the fiscal industry.
me -- in the spirit of Karl and Groucho Marx

[Burkhard]

On Mar 25, 2:42�pm, Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com> wrote:
> In article <UZOdnYdOWvxqyqfM4p2d...@giganews.com>,

> �John Harshman <jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>
> > Cretaceous presbyornithid
>
> Cretaceous Presbyterians? I had *no* idea they went so far back.
>
> --

Why yes, of course they do! "presbuteros" is the comparative form of
presbus, old man. So they really are always older than you think