Phylogenetic vs. evolutionary

[Peter Nyikos]

I have long delayed my return to talk.origins and s.b.p. because I have
become intensely involved on Amazon.com in the blog that goes with
Aaron Baldwin's review of Stephen Meyer's _Darwin's Doubt_.

Christine Janis is, in some ways, the counterpart of John Harshman there.
She is almost as sold on "phylogenetic systematics" as Harshman.
The following post, done in reply to her, explains the scare quotes.


Christine M. Janis wrote:

> So, yes, dogs will stay dogs. How could it possibly be otherwise?
> No organism can abandon its phylogenetic and evolutionary history."

Yeah, you and I are still fish and will stay fish in the *de rigeur*
terminology of cladistic systematics. Too bad The Incredible Mr. Limpet
didn't know that when he wished "more than anything else" to be a fish in
that old children's movie. But he did get what he really wished for:
to be a non-tetrapod fish.

By the way, it's nice to see you distinguish between "phylogenetic"
and "evolutionary". This weekend, I got my first look at the epilogue
in the second edition of _Darwin's Doubt_ and was amused to see that
Keynyn Brysse did not realize how thoroughly the word "phylogenetic"
has been expropriated by the cladistic systematists. She is quoted on
p. 436 as saying,

"the cladogram is not an expression of ancestor-descendant
relationships; it is not a phylogenetic tree."

She makes the same mistake of thinking "phylogenetic" means
what it used to mean in the midst of a longer quote on the same page:

"...any given cladogram is usually consistent with multiple
phylogenetic trees. ..."

Of course, she means "evolutionary trees", and, at the end of
the quoted text, she gets a related term right:

"In other words, the very goal of evolutionary systematics -- the
determination of ancestor-descendant relationships -- is on the
cladistic method not just unattained but unattainable."

-- "From Weird Wonders to Stem Lineages: The Second Reclassification
of the Burgess Shale Fauna," Studies in History and Philosophy of Science
Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical
Sciences 39, no. 3 (2008) 298--313.

...and not only unattainable but very close to being banned from
scientific journals altogether, along with evolutionary systematics itself.
But Richard Zander still managed to get the following published:

"Macrosystematics of Didymodon sensu lato (Pottiaceae, Bryophyta)
using an analytic key and information theory," Ukr. Bot. J. 2016, 73(4):
319--332
https://doi.org/10.15407/ukrbotj73.04.319

There is a lot of discussion in this paper of evolutionary trees
(caulograms) in comparison to cladograms. The closing sentences of the
abstract are suggestive: "The caulogram allowed for predictions
not possible with cladograms. The importance of using information
on both shared and serial descent is discussed."

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

[Peter Nyikos]

On Tuesday, January 31, 2017 at 9:33:42 PM UTC-5, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> I have long delayed my return to talk.origins and s.b.p. because I have
> become intensely involved on Amazon.com in the blog that goes with
> Aaron Baldwin's review of Stephen Meyer's _Darwin's Doubt_.
>
> Christine Janis is, in some ways, the counterpart of John Harshman there.
> She is almost as sold on "phylogenetic systematics" as Harshman.

Almost, but not quite. She slipped twice yesterday, and I had some
fun ribbing her:


Christine M. Janis wrote:

> Note, however, that numerous new species are indeed seen
> to emerge over time in the Bighorn Basin,
> and their ancestors can be identified."

How can anyone "note" such a thing, Christine, when you cladists
will have nothing to do with publishing statements like this
in peer-reviewed scientific journals?

And SteveT has a concept of "science" which justifies y'all's
inactivity by implying that your sentence above is "scientifically
meaningless" and even "unintelligible." Reason: you are unable
to specify any evidence that would make it true. I've been waiting
to see what comment you'd make on that concept, you know.

And here's frosting on the cake: over in the same Prothero-blog
where SteveT formulated his concept, you showed how the sentence I quote
from you above is anathema to what you call "evolutionary science"
because it speaks of paraphyletic taxa which are NOT necessarily stem
groups:

"You really do need to stop obsessing about how evolutionary science
has moved on since the days you first encountered it and try to
keep with the program."
[p. 669]

And yet, and yet...here you continue with another heretical sentence:

> There are individuals of early horses and primates who are
> intermediate between parent and daughter species and
> who cannot be assigned to either species."

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++ end of excerpt from post on p. 447 of blog

Peter Nyikos
Professor of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--

[John Harshman]

Welcome back. At first glance, that paper seems quite bizarre, which is
probably why it was published in an obscure journal. Would you care to
discuss it?

[Peter Nyikos]

Sure, I'm game. But don't expect too much too soon. I'm poised to rejoin
talk.origins any day now.

Peter Nyikos

[John Harshman]

OK. I'll wait for you here.

[Peter Nyikos]

I've got an important role to play the day after tomorrow, with the
annual math contest my university puts on for high school students,
so I'll postpone my re-entry to talk.origins until Monday.

But s.b.p is a lot less intensive than talk.origins, so I think I
can do a couple of posts tomorrow, once I've decided on the details of
my presentation on Saturday.

Perhaps you could tell us one or two things that you deem bizarre in the article? Others might be interested enough to join in.

Peter Nyikos
Professor of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
Univ. of South Carolina

[Oxyaena]

On 1/31/2017 9:33 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> I have long delayed my return to talk.origins and s.b.p. because I have
> become intensely involved on Amazon.com in the blog that goes with
> Aaron Baldwin's review of Stephen Meyer's _Darwin's Doubt_.
>
> Christine Janis is, in some ways, the counterpart of John Harshman there.
> She is almost as sold on "phylogenetic systematics" as Harshman.
> The following post, done in reply to her, explains the scare quotes.
>
>
> Christine M. Janis wrote:
>
>> So, yes, dogs will stay dogs. How could it possibly be otherwise?
>> No organism can abandon its phylogenetic and evolutionary history."

Does that mean that I`m still a choanoflagellate?

>
> Yeah, you and I are still fish and will stay fish in the *de rigeur*
> terminology of cladistic systematics. Too bad The Incredible Mr. Limpet
> didn't know that when he wished "more than anything else" to be a fish in
> that old children's movie. But he did get what he really wished for:
> to be a non-tetrapod fish.

Wrong, fish are a paraphyletic group, with non-Tetrapod Gnathostomes
more closely related to Tetrapods than to Agnathans, themselves a
paraphyletic group, technically, lungfish are more closely related to
tetrapos than to other "fish", yet they're still classified as "fish".

>
> By the way, it's nice to see you distinguish between "phylogenetic"
> and "evolutionary". This weekend, I got my first look at the epilogue
> in the second edition of _Darwin's Doubt_ and was amused to see that
> Keynyn Brysse did not realize how thoroughly the word "phylogenetic"
> has been expropriated by the cladistic systematists. She is quoted on
> p. 436 as saying,

More irrelevant drivel coming from the mouth of Peter the Magnificent
himself. Christine Janis isn't even in this newsgroup. This doesn't flow
with the structure of this paragraph, but I'll put it here anyways. Your
title "phylogenetic vs evolutionary" is an oxymoron, because there is
nothing inherently contradictory between the two, with phylogenetics
providing even more evidence for evolution. I get your point from your
twisted POV, but I still would've gone for a better title.

>
> "the cladogram is not an expression of ancestor-descendant
> relationships; it is not a phylogenetic tree."

>
> She makes the same mistake of thinking "phylogenetic" means
> what it used to mean in the midst of a longer quote on the same page:

I wasn't aware that the term "phylogenetic" had changed definitions.
Please enlighten, oh wise one.

>
> "...any given cladogram is usually consistent with multiple
> phylogenetic trees. ..."
>
> Of course, she means "evolutionary trees", and, at the end of
> the quoted text, she gets a related term right:

Wow, some of that knowledge of yours is really rubbing off on her. I`m
impressed, Peter. Looks like I might have to retake college to get into
that fantastic course of yours, what, with all the disgruntled students
calling you a "pathetic teacher".

>
> "In other words, the very goal of evolutionary systematics -- the
> determination of ancestor-descendant relationships -- is on the
> cladistic method not just unattained but unattainable."
>
> -- "From Weird Wonders to Stem Lineages: The Second Reclassification
> of the Burgess Shale Fauna," Studies in History and Philosophy of Science
> Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical
> Sciences 39, no. 3 (2008) 298--313.
>
> ...and not only unattainable but very close to being banned from
> scientific journals altogether, along with evolutionary systematics itself.
> But Richard Zander still managed to get the following published:
>
> "Macrosystematics of Didymodon sensu lato (Pottiaceae, Bryophyta)
> using an analytic key and information theory," Ukr. Bot. J. 2016, 73(4):
> 319--332
> https://doi.org/10.15407/ukrbotj73.04.319
>
> There is a lot of discussion in this paper of evolutionary trees
> (caulograms) in comparison to cladograms. The closing sentences of the
> abstract are suggestive: "The caulogram allowed for predictions
> not possible with cladograms. The importance of using information
> on both shared and serial descent is discussed."
>
> Peter Nyikos
> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> University of South Carolina
> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos/
>

As far as I`m aware, cladograms have long since out-phased evolutionary
trees, in part due to the "tree" giving the impression of evolution
being an upward spiral, which it isn't.

--
http://thrinaxodon.org/

"Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." -
Theodosius Doubzhansky

"If a man would follow, today, the teachings of the Old Testament, he
would be a criminal. If he would strictly follow the teachings of the
New, he would be insane."
—Robert G. Ingersoll

"If Con is the opposite of Pro, what is the opposite of Progress?" -
Mark Twain

[Peter Nyikos]

I lost track of this thread for a while, as did you earlier, I see:

On Monday, March 13, 2017 at 2:00:30 PM UTC-4, Oxyaena wrote:
> On 1/31/2017 9:33 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > I have long delayed my return to talk.origins and s.b.p. because I have
> > become intensely involved on Amazon.com in the blog that goes with
> > Aaron Baldwin's review of Stephen Meyer's _Darwin's Doubt_.
> >
> > Christine Janis is, in some ways, the counterpart of John Harshman there.
> > She is almost as sold on "phylogenetic systematics" as Harshman.
> > The following post, done in reply to her, explains the scare quotes.
> >
> >
> > Christine M. Janis wrote:
> >
> >> So, yes, dogs will stay dogs. How could it possibly be otherwise?
> >> No organism can abandon its phylogenetic and evolutionary history."
>
> Does that mean that I`m still a choanoflagellate?

I'm not sure about that since the various cells of sponges might have
different ancestors, some of which may not be choanflagellates. But you
are almost certainly an acoel, originally a primitive form of bilaterian
once subsumed under Platyhelminthes.

That is, according to Janis and Harshman.

> > Yeah, you and I are still fish and will stay fish in the *de rigeur*
> > terminology of cladistic systematics. Too bad The Incredible Mr. Limpet
> > didn't know that when he wished "more than anything else" to be a fish in
> > that old children's movie. But he did get what he really wished for:
> > to be a non-tetrapod fish.
>
>
> Wrong, fish are a paraphyletic group,

As are dinosaurs *sensu* Romer, as in "non-avian dinosaur".

But Harshman has rejected those old classifications. When I brought up the
case of Mr. Limpet to him years ago, right here in s.b.p. he claimed to be
looking forward to the day when all children would know that Mr. Limpet
was already a fish, only not a non-tetrapod fish.

That got me to wondering whether he had Asperger's syndrome, and he
surprised me immensely by admitting that his wife often accused him of having Asperger's.

But don't let that go to your head. Posting mountains of spam to
overwhelm sci.bio.paleontology is indicative of something more serious
than Asperger's.

And don't be claiming that this is all in your past. You claimed that
once before when you were sober, then went back to your destructive
ways. Fortunately the present bout of sobriety is much longer than the
first, but can you guarantee it is permanent?

> with non-Tetrapod Gnathostomes
> more closely related to Tetrapods than to Agnathans,

Thanks for the refresher course, but only non-Nyikos readers need it.

> themselves a
> paraphyletic group, technically, lungfish are more closely related to
> tetrapos than to other "fish", yet they're still classified as "fish".

Yes, as are tetrapods, in the World According to Harshman and Janis.

>
> >
> > By the way, it's nice to see you distinguish between "phylogenetic"
> > and "evolutionary". This weekend, I got my first look at the epilogue
> > in the second edition of _Darwin's Doubt_ and was amused to see that
> > Keynyn Brysse did not realize how thoroughly the word "phylogenetic"
> > has been expropriated by the cladistic systematists. She is quoted on
> > p. 436 as saying,
>
>
> More irrelevant drivel coming from the mouth of Peter the Magnificent
> himself.

That's no way to reassure us that your mountains of spam are
permanently behind you.

> Christine Janis isn't even in this newsgroup.

She did post on talk.origins in several threads over the last three
years, one of which she began herself. And she is a research
paleontologist, a status even Harshman cannot claim -- nor aspire to,
at his age, by all available evidence.

> This doesn't flow
> with the structure of this paragraph, but I'll put it here anyways. Your
> title "phylogenetic vs evolutionary" is an oxymoron, because there is
> nothing inherently contradictory between the two,

No, but Harshman and Janis want to banish the latter from systematics,
and they claim to be so much mainstream that they tell me to get over
the fact that their side has won.

So pragmatically the two are incompatible.

> with phylogenetics
> providing even more evidence for evolution.

But precious little for actual instances of ancestry. Hyracotherium
is off on a side branch from the rest of Equidae in every phylogenetic
tree, just as the platypus is off on a side branch from the echidnas.
But an evolutionary tree only treats the platypus that way.

And the only reason the phylogenetic trees provide more evidence of
evolution is that the construction of evolutionary trees has stagnated
for several decades, thanks to the aggressive ideology of their critics.

> I get your point from your
> twisted POV, but I still would've gone for a better title.
>
>
> >
> > "the cladogram is not an expression of ancestor-descendant
> > relationships; it is not a phylogenetic tree."
>
> >
> > She makes the same mistake of thinking "phylogenetic" means
> > what it used to mean in the midst of a longer quote on the same page:
>
> I wasn't aware that the term "phylogenetic" had changed definitions.
> Please enlighten, oh wise one.

In the olden days, "evolutionary" and "phylogenetic" both encompassed
what the two together now encompass. Nevermore, as the raven quoth
in Poe's poem, shall they be synonymous or even compatible.

> > "...any given cladogram is usually consistent with multiple
> > phylogenetic trees. ..."
> >
> > Of course, she means "evolutionary trees", and, at the end of
> > the quoted text, she gets a related term right:
>
> Wow, some of that knowledge of yours is really rubbing off on her. I`m
> impressed, Peter. Looks like I might have to retake college to get into
> that fantastic course of yours, what, with all the disgruntled students
> calling you a "pathetic teacher".

Having taught for almost four decades here, and having less than four
per decade being disgruntled enough to call me that in public, is what
I would call an enviable record. I've had more people in talk.origins
insult me worse than that, in less than two decades, and none of them
had a leg to stand on.

> > "In other words, the very goal of evolutionary systematics -- the
> > determination of ancestor-descendant relationships -- is on the
> > cladistic method not just unattained but unattainable."

And all three of you -- Harshman, Janis, and yourself -- are perfectly
happy with that. I'm not.

> > -- "From Weird Wonders to Stem Lineages: The Second Reclassification
> > of the Burgess Shale Fauna," Studies in History and Philosophy of Science
> > Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical
> > Sciences 39, no. 3 (2008) 298--313.
> >
> > ...and not only unattainable but very close to being banned from
> > scientific journals altogether, along with evolutionary systematics itself.
> > But Richard Zander still managed to get the following published:
> >
> > "Macrosystematics of Didymodon sensu lato (Pottiaceae, Bryophyta)
> > using an analytic key and information theory," Ukr. Bot. J. 2016, 73(4):
> > 319--332
> > https://doi.org/10.15407/ukrbotj73.04.319
> >
> > There is a lot of discussion in this paper of evolutionary trees
> > (caulograms) in comparison to cladograms. The closing sentences of the
> > abstract are suggestive: "The caulogram allowed for predictions
> > not possible with cladograms. The importance of using information
> > on both shared and serial descent is discussed."
> >
> > Peter Nyikos
> > Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> > University of South Carolina
> > http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos/
> >
> As far as I`m aware, cladograms have long since out-phased evolutionary
> trees,

...thanks to relentless propaganda by cladophiles like Harshman and Janis.

in part due to the "tree" giving the impression of evolution
> being an upward spiral, which it isn't.

Only in the eyes of ignoramuses, who think of evolution that way
irrespective of either kind of tree.

[John Harshman]

On 4/12/17 2:11 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> I lost track of this thread for a while, as did you earlier, I see:
>
> On Monday, March 13, 2017 at 2:00:30 PM UTC-4, Oxyaena wrote:
>> On 1/31/2017 9:33 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>> I have long delayed my return to talk.origins and s.b.p. because I have
>>> become intensely involved on Amazon.com in the blog that goes with
>>> Aaron Baldwin's review of Stephen Meyer's _Darwin's Doubt_.
>>>
>>> Christine Janis is, in some ways, the counterpart of John Harshman there.
>>> She is almost as sold on "phylogenetic systematics" as Harshman.
>>> The following post, done in reply to her, explains the scare quotes.
>>>
>>>
>>> Christine M. Janis wrote:
>>>
>>>> So, yes, dogs will stay dogs. How could it possibly be otherwise?
>>>> No organism can abandon its phylogenetic and evolutionary history."
>>
>> Does that mean that I`m still a choanoflagellate?
>
> I'm not sure about that since the various cells of sponges might have
> different ancestors, some of which may not be choanflagellates.

This is a bizarre claim that I'm certain you can't support. Are you
really saying that a single sponge may be a colony of protists with
different ancestors? And yet, each cell has the same genome. How would
that be possible?

Now, to answer Oxyaena's question, no, he isn't a choanoflagellate. That
too is a clade, as are (according to almost all recent analyses)
sponges. I don't recall if there's a name for the
choanoflagellate-metazoan clade, but if there is, that's what he is.

> But you
> are almost certainly an acoel, originally a primitive form of bilaterian
> once subsumed under Platyhelminthes.
>
> That is, according to Janis and Harshman.

Nope. Acoel flatworms are not paraphyletic to triploblasts, which is
what you seem to be claiming.

>>> Yeah, you and I are still fish and will stay fish in the *de rigeur*
>>> terminology of cladistic systematics. Too bad The Incredible Mr. Limpet
>>> didn't know that when he wished "more than anything else" to be a fish in
>>> that old children's movie. But he did get what he really wished for:
>>> to be a non-tetrapod fish.
>>
>>
>> Wrong, fish are a paraphyletic group,
>
> As are dinosaurs *sensu* Romer, as in "non-avian dinosaur".
>
> But Harshman has rejected those old classifications.

Not Harshman. Modern systematics.

> When I brought up the
> case of Mr. Limpet to him years ago, right here in s.b.p. he claimed to be
> looking forward to the day when all children would know that Mr. Limpet
> was already a fish, only not a non-tetrapod fish.

Anyway, shouldn't Mr. Limpet have turned into a marine snail?

>> with non-Tetrapod Gnathostomes
>> more closely related to Tetrapods than to Agnathans,
>
> Thanks for the refresher course, but only non-Nyikos readers need it.
>
>> themselves a
>> paraphyletic group, technically, lungfish are more closely related to
>> tetrapos than to other "fish", yet they're still classified as "fish".
>
> Yes, as are tetrapods, in the World According to Harshman and Janis.

Again, in the world according to modern systematics. There's no need to
personalize it. There may however be disagreements over what "fish"
means. I favor different usages depending on context. In an evolutionary
context, it's useful to say that tetrapods are highly derived fish. In a
restaurant, lamb isn't fish.

>> This doesn't flow
>> with the structure of this paragraph, but I'll put it here anyways. Your
>> title "phylogenetic vs evolutionary" is an oxymoron, because there is
>> nothing inherently contradictory between the two,
>
> No, but Harshman and Janis want to banish the latter from systematics,
> and they claim to be so much mainstream that they tell me to get over
> the fact that their side has won.
>
> So pragmatically the two are incompatible.

That's because "evolutionary" is the name Ernst Mayr chose for his
preference for paraphyletic groups. (I think he way trying to claim the
high ground. He was fond of argument by terminology, as in the attempted
pejorative "cladistics".) Oxyaena may not be aware of that terminology.
What I think Oxyaena is saying is that there's no conflict between
evolutionary biology and phylogenetics. Clearly there is conflict
between "evolutionary" and phylogenetic classification.

>> with phylogenetics
>> providing even more evidence for evolution.
>
> But precious little for actual instances of ancestry. Hyracotherium
> is off on a side branch from the rest of Equidae in every phylogenetic
> tree, just as the platypus is off on a side branch from the echidnas.
> But an evolutionary tree only treats the platypus that way.

True, if by "evolutionary tree" you refer to a convention of putting
real taxa at ancestral nodes. Of course we disagree as to whether that's
a good idea.

> And the only reason the phylogenetic trees provide more evidence of
> evolution is that the construction of evolutionary trees has stagnated
> for several decades, thanks to the aggressive ideology of their critics.

That's not why it stagnated. The methodology was never in any way
rigorous, just guesswork and opinion, and mostly a simplistic game of
connect-the-dots. It stagnated because there isn't anywhere to go from
there.

>>> "In other words, the very goal of evolutionary systematics -- the
>>> determination of ancestor-descendant relationships -- is on the
>>> cladistic method not just unattained but unattainable."
>
> And all three of you -- Harshman, Janis, and yourself -- are perfectly
> happy with that. I'm not.

It isn't a question of being happy, but of surrendering to reality.

[Oxyaena]

I`m flattered, jackass.

>
> And don't be claiming that this is all in your past. You claimed that
> once before when you were sober, then went back to your destructive
> ways. Fortunately the present bout of sobriety is much longer than the
> first, but can you guarantee it is permanent





>

>> with non-Tetrapod Gnathostomes
>> more closely related to Tetrapods than to Agnathans,
>
> Thanks for the refresher course, but only non-Nyikos readers need it.
>

Again with the over-inflated ego and fanatic narcissism, Petey.

>> themselves a
>> paraphyletic group, technically, lungfish are more closely related to
>> tetrapos than to other "fish", yet they're still classified as "fish".
>
> Yes, as are tetrapods, in the World According to Harshman and Janis.
>





>>
>>>
>>> By the way, it's nice to see you distinguish between "phylogenetic"
>>> and "evolutionary". This weekend, I got my first look at the epilogue
>>> in the second edition of _Darwin's Doubt_ and was amused to see that
>>> Keynyn Brysse did not realize how thoroughly the word "phylogenetic"
>>> has been expropriated by the cladistic systematists. She is quoted on
>>> p. 436 as saying,
>>
>>
>> More irrelevant drivel coming from the mouth of Peter the Magnificent
>> himself.
>
> That's no way to reassure us that your mountains of spam are
> permanently behind you.

Yeah, thanks for the reminder, jackass. Have you looked in a mirror lately?

>
>> Christine Janis isn't even in this newsgroup.
>
> She did post on talk.origins in several threads over the last three
> years, one of which she began herself. And she is a research
> paleontologist, a status even Harshman cannot claim -- nor aspire to,
> at his age, by all available evidence.

Interesting, but as far as I`m aware talk.origins and sbp are two
different newsgroups, with only a few tenuous links, I`m afraid.

>
>> This doesn't flow
>> with the structure of this paragraph, but I'll put it here anyways. Your
>> title "phylogenetic vs evolutionary" is an oxymoron, because there is
>> nothing inherently contradictory between the two,
>
> No, but Harshman and Janis want to banish the latter from systematics,
> and they claim to be so much mainstream that they tell me to get over
> the fact that their side has won.

Bullshit, there is no "side", there's the scientific consensus, and then
there's you, a burnt out old man yearning for the good old days before
cladistics.

>
> So pragmatically the two are incompatible.

Right, I'll make sure to consult with the almighty google on that, just
in case there's the slightest possibility that you're talking out of the
side of your neck again.

>
>
>> with phylogenetics
>> providing even more evidence for evolution.
>
> But precious little for actual instances of ancestry. Hyracotherium
> is off on a side branch from the rest of Equidae in every phylogenetic
> tree, just as the platypus is off on a side branch from the echidnas.
> But an evolutionary tree only treats the platypus that way.

You're misrepresenting phylogenetics, platypuses aren't "lesser" in any
sort of the word, and as far as I`m aware it was the echidnas who are
more derived than platypuses are. Anyways, that's not the point. You're
assuming that in cladistics one taxon is inferior to another by account
of the interval between the separation of the two taxa in geological
time from one another, when that is not the case, both are as "evolved"
as the other.

I've even heard for people supporting terms like "basal" to be kicked
out, and for good reason. Being a "basal" taxon is inherently
meaningless, because they are both products of evolution, are monkeys
inferior to gibbons because gibbons are apes, and apes are supposedly
more "evolved" than monkeys, due to our own anthropocentrism? Are
ostriches less "evolved" than albatrosses?

>
> And the only reason the phylogenetic trees provide more evidence of
> evolution is that the construction of evolutionary trees has stagnated
> for several decades, thanks to the aggressive ideology of their critics.

Fascinating, more mindless drivel coming from the mouth of Peter the
Magnificent. Is there any post of yours that isn't hissing with contempt?

>
>> I get your point from your
>> twisted POV, but I still would've gone for a better title.
>>
>>
>>>
>>> "the cladogram is not an expression of ancestor-descendant
>>> relationships; it is not a phylogenetic tree."
>>
>>>
>>> She makes the same mistake of thinking "phylogenetic" means
>>> what it used to mean in the midst of a longer quote on the same page:
>>
>> I wasn't aware that the term "phylogenetic" had changed definitions.
>> Please enlighten, oh wise one.
>
> In the olden days, "evolutionary" and "phylogenetic" both encompassed
> what the two together now encompass. Nevermore, as the raven quoth
> in Poe's poem, shall they be synonymous or even compatible.

That's a subjective opinion, not a statement of fact. I`m consulting a
dictionary right now, and the definition hasn't changed. But if your
word trumps the scientific definition of "phylogenetic" as it has
trumped many other instances in the past, so be it.

>
>>> "...any given cladogram is usually consistent with multiple
>>> phylogenetic trees. ..."
>>>
>>> Of course, she means "evolutionary trees", and, at the end of
>>> the quoted text, she gets a related term right:
>>
>> Wow, some of that knowledge of yours is really rubbing off on her. I`m
>> impressed, Peter. Looks like I might have to retake college to get into
>> that fantastic course of yours, what, with all the disgruntled students
>> calling you a "pathetic teacher".
>
> Having taught for almost four decades here, and having less than four
> per decade being disgruntled enough to call me that in public, is what
> I would call an enviable record. I've had more people in talk.origins
> insult me worse than that, in less than two decades, and none of them
> had a leg to stand on.
>

Hey, I`m just repeating what "Rate My Professor" said, and there were a
lot of less than thrilled students with you, sure there was the
occasionnal mentally-challenged oddball in the crowd who has been swayed
by you, but the vast majority of students on there beg to differ.

>
>>> "In other words, the very goal of evolutionary systematics -- the
>>> determination of ancestor-descendant relationships -- is on the
>>> cladistic method not just unattained but unattainable."
>
> And all three of you -- Harshman, Janis, and yourself -- are perfectly
> happy with that. I'm not.

Thanks for all the "compliments", it means a lot.

[ruben safir]

On 01/31/2017 09:33 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> "Macrosystematics of Didymodon sensu lato (Pottiaceae, Bryophyta)
> using an analytic key and information theory," Ukr. Bot. J. 2016, 73(4):
> 319--332
> https://doi.org/10.15407/ukrbotj73.04.319
>
> There is a lot of discussion in this paper of evolutionary trees
> (caulograms) in comparison to cladograms. The closing sentences of the
> abstract are suggestive: "The caulogram allowed for predictions
> not possible with cladograms. The importance of using information
> on both shared and serial descent is discussed."

how many angles sit on the head of a pin. It is all the same to me.

[John Harshman]

?

[RSNorman]

On Fri, 14 Apr 2017 21:25:32 -0400, ruben safir <ru...@mrbrklyn.com>
wrote:

No matter how many there may be, they all sum to 4 pi steradians.

[John Harshman]

Are there separate numbers for saxons and jutes?

[Popping mad]

On Sun, 16 Apr 2017 13:04:03 -0700, RSNorman wrote:


>>how many angles sit on the head of a pin. It is all the same to me.
>
> No matter how many there may be, they all sum to 4 pi steradians.

I bow to the master.

[Peter Nyikos]

Harshman's been wanting me to return to s.b.p. and reply to
his unanswered follow-ups to me, but on this thread it's more fun to reply
to you and comment on his deathless prose in the process.

On Friday, April 14, 2017 at 8:42:50 PM UTC-4, Oxyaena wrote:
> On 4/12/2017 5:11 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > I lost track of this thread for a while, as did you earlier, I see:
> >
> > On Monday, March 13, 2017 at 2:00:30 PM UTC-4, Oxyaena wrote:
> >> On 1/31/2017 9:33 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>> I have long delayed my return to talk.origins and s.b.p. because I have
> >>> become intensely involved on Amazon.com in the blog that goes with
> >>> Aaron Baldwin's review of Stephen Meyer's _Darwin's Doubt_.
> >>>
> >>> Christine Janis is, in some ways, the counterpart of John Harshman there.
> >>> She is almost as sold on "phylogenetic systematics" as Harshman.
> >>> The following post, done in reply to her, explains the scare quotes.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Christine M. Janis wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> So, yes, dogs will stay dogs. How could it possibly be otherwise?
> >>>> No organism can abandon its phylogenetic and evolutionary history."
> >>
> >> Does that mean that I`m still a choanoflagellate?
> >
> > I'm not sure about that since the various cells of sponges might have
> > different ancestors, some of which may not be choanflagellates.

Harshman claims all cells of a modern sponge, including the ameboid and
the collared, have the same genome, but he was too lazy to give a
reference.

And even if he is right, it still needs to be established that we belong
to the sponge crown group rather than the sponge total group.

> > But you
> > are almost certainly an acoel, originally a primitive form of bilaterian
> > once subsumed under Platyhelminthes.

Harshman disagreed and again failed to give a reference.

> > That is, according to Janis and Harshman.
> >
> >>> Yeah, you and I are still fish and will stay fish in the *de rigeur*
> >>> terminology of cladistic systematics. Too bad The Incredible Mr. Limpet
> >>> didn't know that when he wished "more than anything else" to be a fish in
> >>> that old children's movie. But he did get what he really wished for:
> >>> to be a non-tetrapod fish.

> >>
> >> Wrong, fish are a paraphyletic group,
> >
> > As are dinosaurs *sensu* Romer, as in "non-avian dinosaur".
> >
> > But Harshman has rejected those old classifications. When I brought up the
> > case of Mr. Limpet to him years ago, right here in s.b.p. he claimed to be
> > looking forward to the day when all children would know that Mr. Limpet
> > was already a fish, only not a non-tetrapod fish.

This time around, Harshman either revealed that he never saw the movie,
or he cracked a childish joke that Mr. Limpet should have really
wanted to become a mollusk. As though Beetle Bailey should have wanted
to become an insect.

> > That got me to wondering whether he had Asperger's syndrome, and he
> > surprised me immensely by admitting that his wife often accused him of having Asperger's.
> >
> > But don't let that go to your head. Posting mountains of spam to
> > overwhelm sci.bio.paleontology is indicative of something more serious
> > than Asperger's.
>
> I`m flattered, jackass.

Looks like you are pining for the "good old" days when you almost
destroyed sci.bio.paleontology.

>
> >
> > And don't be claiming that this is all in your past. You claimed that
> > once before when you were sober, then went back to your destructive
> > ways. Fortunately the present bout of sobriety is much longer than the
> > first, but can you guarantee it is permanent

No reply from you to this, so all bets are off.

> >
> >> with non-Tetrapod Gnathostomes
> >> more closely related to Tetrapods than to Agnathans,
> >
> > Thanks for the refresher course, but only non-Nyikos readers need it.
> >
>
> Again with the over-inflated ego and fanatic narcissism, Petey.

Next thing you know, you'll be claiming I have an
over-inflated ego and fanatic narcissism for saying I don't
need a refresher course on the fact that Attila was a Hun.

> >> themselves a
> >> paraphyletic group, technically, lungfish are more closely related to
> >> tetrapos than to other "fish", yet they're still classified as "fish".
> >
> > Yes, as are tetrapods, in the World According to Harshman and Janis.

Harshman has consigned biologists like Richard Zander to history
by claiming all modern systematists use "is" terminology instead
of "descended from" terminology.

So in his world, we are either sponges or else sponges are not
even our ancestors.

> >>> By the way, it's nice to see you distinguish between "phylogenetic"
> >>> and "evolutionary". This weekend, I got my first look at the epilogue
> >>> in the second edition of _Darwin's Doubt_ and was amused to see that
> >>> Keynyn Brysse did not realize how thoroughly the word "phylogenetic"
> >>> has been expropriated by the cladistic systematists. She is quoted on
> >>> p. 436 as saying,
> >>
> >>
> >> More irrelevant drivel coming from the mouth of Peter the Magnificent
> >> himself.
> >
> > That's no way to reassure us that your mountains of spam are
> > permanently behind you.
>
> Yeah, thanks for the reminder, jackass. Have you looked in a mirror lately?

Sure. Unlike "God" in "Steambath" and Harshman, I have no phobia
against having a mirror held up to me.

However, yours is a glass darkly, since you give no specifics,
not even alleged ones. It is when I give damning evidence that
Harshman REALLY can't look at himself in the mirror. As long
as he thinks he can get the upper hand, Harshman scoffs at mirrors.

> >> Christine Janis isn't even in this newsgroup.
> >
> > She did post on talk.origins in several threads over the last three
> > years, one of which she began herself. And she is a research
> > paleontologist, a status even Harshman cannot claim -- nor aspire to,
> > at his age, by all available evidence.
>
> Interesting, but as far as I`m aware talk.origins and sbp are two
> different newsgroups, with only a few tenuous links, I`m afraid.

And you have me to thank for a lot of that. Can you ever bear to
sign on to our agreement to leave our talk.origins grievances behind us
when posting here, and to behave like good ambassadors? You'd have
to leave off your "jackass" talk if you did that, so that might
be too much for you to bear.

> >> This doesn't flow
> >> with the structure of this paragraph, but I'll put it here anyways. Your
> >> title "phylogenetic vs evolutionary" is an oxymoron, because there is
> >> nothing inherently contradictory between the two,
> >
> > No, but Harshman and Janis want to banish the latter from systematics,
> > and they claim to be so much mainstream that they tell me to get over
> > the fact that their side has won.
>
> Bullshit, there is no "side", there's the scientific consensus,

There is a consensus among the movers and shakers of systematics,
but it has nothing to do with science, as Richard Zander and
a number of others know.

> and then
> there's you, a burnt out old man yearning for the good old days before
> cladistics.

I'm sure Harshman approves of this last comment, as does Erik Simpson
and Richard Norman.

But Cal King is the person who fits your description, not me. He was opposed
to cladistic techniques and not just to the ideology of cladophilia, which
is all I've ever voiced opposition to.

Cal King was Harshman's nemesis in the 1990's and it would really
restore a lot of scientific argument to sci.bio.paleontology
if he returned here. But unlike you, he never exchanged e-mail
with me, and I don't know how to get in touch with him, because
"Cal King" is a pseudonym based on the California King Snake.

> > So pragmatically the two are incompatible.
>
> Right, I'll make sure to consult with the almighty google on that, just
> in case there's the slightest possibility that you're talking out of the
> side of your neck again.

Almost a month has elapsed. Have you consulted "the almighty google" yet?

>
>
> >
> >
> >> with phylogenetics
> >> providing even more evidence for evolution.
> >
> > But precious little for actual instances of ancestry. Hyracotherium
> > is off on a side branch from the rest of Equidae in every phylogenetic
> > tree, just as the platypus is off on a side branch from the echidnas.
> > But an evolutionary tree only treats the platypus that way.
>
> You're misrepresenting phylogenetics, platypuses aren't "lesser" in any
> sort of the word,

You misinterpreted me. The four echidnas are also off on a side
branch from platypuses. In fact all sister groups in the
*phylogenetic* tree of life are off on side branches from each other.

I'm a topologist, remember?

> and as far as I`m aware it was the echidnas who are
> more derived than platypuses are. Anyways, that's not the point. You're
> assuming that in cladistics one taxon is inferior to another by account
> of the interval between the separation of the two taxa in geological
> time from one another, when that is not the case, both are as "evolved"
> as the other.

Sorry, you're just plain clueless about what I'm about.

> I've even heard for people supporting terms like "basal" to be kicked
> out, and for good reason. Being a "basal" taxon is inherently
> meaningless,

Unless one is ancestral to the whole clade. But that is anathema
to you and all "modern systematists" *sensu* Harshman.

> because they are both products of evolution, are monkeys
> inferior to gibbons because gibbons are apes, and apes are supposedly
> more "evolved" than monkeys, due to our own anthropocentrism? Are
> ostriches less "evolved" than albatrosses?

<sigh> Did you get the hint when I wrote, "I'm a topologist, remember?"?
You are really barking up the wrong tree.

> >
> > And the only reason the phylogenetic trees provide more evidence of
> > evolution is that the construction of evolutionary trees has stagnated
> > for several decades, thanks to the aggressive ideology of their critics.
>
>
> Fascinating, more mindless drivel coming from the mouth of Peter the
> Magnificent. Is there any post of yours that isn't hissing with contempt?

Learn the difference between a Jeremiad and a post hissing with
contempt, you contempt-oozing asshole.

And learn the difference between insulting someone like you just
did me, and refuting him.

Harshman at least insulted what I wrote rather than insulting me.
Not that he was any better at refuting it than you are.

>
>
> >
> >> I get your point from your
> >> twisted POV, but I still would've gone for a better title.
> >>
> >>
> >>>
> >>> "the cladogram is not an expression of ancestor-descendant
> >>> relationships; it is not a phylogenetic tree."
> >>
> >>>
> >>> She makes the same mistake of thinking "phylogenetic" means
> >>> what it used to mean in the midst of a longer quote on the same page:
> >>
> >> I wasn't aware that the term "phylogenetic" had changed definitions.
> >> Please enlighten, oh wise one.
> >
> > In the olden days, "evolutionary" and "phylogenetic" both encompassed
> > what the two together now encompass. Nevermore, as the raven quoth
> > in Poe's poem, shall they be synonymous or even compatible.
>
> That's a subjective opinion, not a statement of fact.

You're wrong about the present, but would be delighted if I was
wrong about what the future will bring.

> I`m consulting a
> dictionary right now, and the definition hasn't changed. But if your
> word trumps the scientific definition of "phylogenetic" as it has
> trumped many other instances in the past, so be it.
>
>
> >
> >>> "...any given cladogram is usually consistent with multiple
> >>> phylogenetic trees. ..."
> >>>
> >>> Of course, she means "evolutionary trees", and, at the end of
> >>> the quoted text, she gets a related term right:

<snip of off-topic digression>

> >>> "In other words, the very goal of evolutionary systematics -- the
> >>> determination of ancestor-descendant relationships -- is on the
> >>> cladistic method not just unattained but unattainable."
> >
> > And all three of you -- Harshman, Janis, and yourself -- are perfectly
> > happy with that. I'm not.
>
> Thanks for all the "compliments", it means a lot.

Here, I was being very factual. You may take what I wrote as a compliment
if you wish.

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

University of So. Carolina
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos/

[John Harshman]

On 5/8/17 6:56 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> Harshman's been wanting me to return to s.b.p. and reply to
> his unanswered follow-ups to me, but on this thread it's more fun to reply
> to you and comment on his deathless prose in the process.

Now that's pathological.

> On Friday, April 14, 2017 at 8:42:50 PM UTC-4, Oxyaena wrote:
>> On 4/12/2017 5:11 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>> I lost track of this thread for a while, as did you earlier, I see:
>>>
>>> On Monday, March 13, 2017 at 2:00:30 PM UTC-4, Oxyaena wrote:
>>>> On 1/31/2017 9:33 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>>>> I have long delayed my return to talk.origins and s.b.p. because I have
>>>>> become intensely involved on Amazon.com in the blog that goes with
>>>>> Aaron Baldwin's review of Stephen Meyer's _Darwin's Doubt_.
>>>>>
>>>>> Christine Janis is, in some ways, the counterpart of John Harshman there.
>>>>> She is almost as sold on "phylogenetic systematics" as Harshman.
>>>>> The following post, done in reply to her, explains the scare quotes.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Christine M. Janis wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> So, yes, dogs will stay dogs. How could it possibly be otherwise?
>>>>>> No organism can abandon its phylogenetic and evolutionary history."
>>>>
>>>> Does that mean that I`m still a choanoflagellate?
>>>
>>> I'm not sure about that since the various cells of sponges might have
>>> different ancestors, some of which may not be choanflagellates.
>
> Harshman claims all cells of a modern sponge, including the ameboid and
> the collared, have the same genome, but he was too lazy to give a
> reference.

No, it's that I didn't think a reference was necessary. Sponges are
animals. A sponge grows from a single fertilized egg, just like other
animals. A fertilized egg is a single cell.

> And even if he is right, it still needs to be established that we belong
> to the sponge crown group rather than the sponge total group.

Most recent phylogenetic analyses show sponges as monophyletic, so we
belong to neither.

>>> But you
>>> are almost certainly an acoel, originally a primitive form of bilaterian
>>> once subsumed under Platyhelminthes.
>
> Harshman disagreed and again failed to give a reference.

As did you for your claim. I'm away from home right now, but could find
one in a couple of days. But so could you.

>>> That is, according to Janis and Harshman.
>>>
>>>>> Yeah, you and I are still fish and will stay fish in the *de rigeur*
>>>>> terminology of cladistic systematics. Too bad The Incredible Mr. Limpet
>>>>> didn't know that when he wished "more than anything else" to be a fish in
>>>>> that old children's movie. But he did get what he really wished for:
>>>>> to be a non-tetrapod fish.
>
>>>>
>>>> Wrong, fish are a paraphyletic group,
>>>
>>> As are dinosaurs *sensu* Romer, as in "non-avian dinosaur".
>>>
>>> But Harshman has rejected those old classifications. When I brought up the
>>> case of Mr. Limpet to him years ago, right here in s.b.p. he claimed to be
>>> looking forward to the day when all children would know that Mr. Limpet
>>> was already a fish, only not a non-tetrapod fish.
>
> This time around, Harshman either revealed that he never saw the movie,
> or he cracked a childish joke that Mr. Limpet should have really
> wanted to become a mollusk. As though Beetle Bailey should have wanted
> to become an insect.

Must you characterize each and every phenomenon with a gratuituous
adjective? I don't consider the joke childish.

>>> That got me to wondering whether he had Asperger's syndrome, and he
>>> surprised me immensely by admitting that his wife often accused him of having Asperger's.
>>>
>>> But don't let that go to your head. Posting mountains of spam to
>>> overwhelm sci.bio.paleontology is indicative of something more serious
>>> than Asperger's.
>>
>> I`m flattered, jackass.
>
> Looks like you are pining for the "good old" days when you almost
> destroyed sci.bio.paleontology.

And this is why you prefer to respond to him rather than me?

>>>> themselves a
>>>> paraphyletic group, technically, lungfish are more closely related to
>>>> tetrapos than to other "fish", yet they're still classified as "fish".
>>>
>>> Yes, as are tetrapods, in the World According to Harshman and Janis.
>
> Harshman has consigned biologists like Richard Zander to history
> by claiming all modern systematists use "is" terminology instead
> of "descended from" terminology.

I don't think I've said "all". But it's pretty close to that.

> So in his world, we are either sponges or else sponges are not
> even our ancestors.

True. The latter.

> However, yours is a glass darkly, since you give no specifics,
> not even alleged ones. It is when I give damning evidence that
> Harshman REALLY can't look at himself in the mirror. As long
> as he thinks he can get the upper hand, Harshman scoffs at mirrors.

Is this post not just one long violation of the sbp agreement?

> There is a consensus among the movers and shakers of systematics,
> but it has nothing to do with science, as Richard Zander and
> a number of others know.

The problem isn't what you don't know, it's what you do know that ain't so.

[Oxyaena]

Refresher course:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attila

>
>
>>>> themselves a
>>>> paraphyletic group, technically, lungfish are more closely related to
>>>> tetrapos than to other "fish", yet they're still classified as "fish".
>>>
>>> Yes, as are tetrapods, in the World According to Harshman and Janis.
>
> Harshman has consigned biologists like Richard Zander to history
> by claiming all modern systematists use "is" terminology instead
> of "descended from" terminology.





>
> So in his world, we are either sponges or else sponges are not
> even our ancestors.

I would think that we aren't sponges, but belong to Metazoa with them,
placozoan-like organisms are more likely to be the ancestors of
Eumetazoans in mine eyes. You see, Placozoans have tissues, unlike
sponges, and sponges are too specialized for them to be our ancestors,
rather than a distant cousin on the evolutionary tree.

Of course, what I`m saying is speculation, because unfortunately the
fossil record of Ediacaran fossils is too bizarre to come up with any
meaningful conclusions of Eumetazoan ancestry outside of educated
guesses and a few anomalies such as *Kimberella*.

>
>>>>> By the way, it's nice to see you distinguish between "phylogenetic"
>>>>> and "evolutionary". This weekend, I got my first look at the epilogue
>>>>> in the second edition of _Darwin's Doubt_ and was amused to see that
>>>>> Keynyn Brysse did not realize how thoroughly the word "phylogenetic"
>>>>> has been expropriated by the cladistic systematists. She is quoted on
>>>>> p. 436 as saying,
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> More irrelevant drivel coming from the mouth of Peter the Magnificent
>>>> himself.
>>>
>>> That's no way to reassure us that your mountains of spam are
>>> permanently behind you.
>>
>> Yeah, thanks for the reminder, jackass. Have you looked in a mirror lately?
>
> Sure. Unlike "God" in "Steambath" and Harshman, I have no phobia
> against having a mirror held up to me.

I hear mirrors are in high demand for mathematicians with delusions of
grandeur.

>
> However, yours is a glass darkly, since you give no specifics,
> not even alleged ones. It is when I give damning evidence that
> Harshman REALLY can't look at himself in the mirror. As long
> as he thinks he can get the upper hand, Harshman scoffs at mirrors.

I have to agree with that.

>
>>>> Christine Janis isn't even in this newsgroup.
>>>
>>> She did post on talk.origins in several threads over the last three
>>> years, one of which she began herself. And she is a research
>>> paleontologist, a status even Harshman cannot claim -- nor aspire to,
>>> at his age, by all available evidence.
>>
>> Interesting, but as far as I`m aware talk.origins and sbp are two
>> different newsgroups, with only a few tenuous links, I`m afraid.
>
> And you have me to thank for a lot of that. Can you ever bear to
> sign on to our agreement to leave our talk.origins grievances behind us
> when posting here, and to behave like good ambassadors? You'd have
> to leave off your "jackass" talk if you did that, so that might
> be too much for you to bear.

I haven't seen anyone behaving like "good ambassadors" here, outside of
not swearing.

>
>>>> This doesn't flow
>>>> with the structure of this paragraph, but I'll put it here anyways. Your
>>>> title "phylogenetic vs evolutionary" is an oxymoron, because there is
>>>> nothing inherently contradictory between the two,
>>>
>>> No, but Harshman and Janis want to banish the latter from systematics,
>>> and they claim to be so much mainstream that they tell me to get over
>>> the fact that their side has won.
>>
>> Bullshit, there is no "side", there's the scientific consensus,
>
> There is a consensus among the movers and shakers of systematics,
> but it has nothing to do with science, as Richard Zander and
> a number of others know.
>
>> and then
>> there's you, a burnt out old man yearning for the good old days before
>> cladistics.
>
> I'm sure Harshman approves of this last comment, as does Erik Simpson
> and Richard Norman.
>
> But Cal King is the person who fits your description, not me. He was opposed
> to cladistic techniques and not just to the ideology of cladophilia, which
> is all I've ever voiced opposition to.

Cladophilia? Is that an actual term or something you pulled out of your
ass? I have to agree with you that "cladophilia" is a detriment to the
field of systematics as a whole, however.

>
> Cal King was Harshman's nemesis in the 1990's and it would really
> restore a lot of scientific argument to sci.bio.paleontology
> if he returned here. But unlike you, he never exchanged e-mail
> with me, and I don't know how to get in touch with him, because
> "Cal King" is a pseudonym based on the California King Snake.
>
>
>>> So pragmatically the two are incompatible.
>>
>> Right, I'll make sure to consult with the almighty google on that, just
>> in case there's the slightest possibility that you're talking out of the
>> side of your neck again.
>
> Almost a month has elapsed. Have you consulted "the almighty google" yet?

Yes.

>
>>
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> with phylogenetics
>>>> providing even more evidence for evolution.
>>>
>>> But precious little for actual instances of ancestry. Hyracotherium
>>> is off on a side branch from the rest of Equidae in every phylogenetic
>>> tree, just as the platypus is off on a side branch from the echidnas.
>>> But an evolutionary tree only treats the platypus that way.
>>
>> You're misrepresenting phylogenetics, platypuses aren't "lesser" in any
>> sort of the word,
>
> You misinterpreted me. The four echidnas are also off on a side
> branch from platypuses. In fact all sister groups in the
> *phylogenetic* tree of life are off on side branches from each other.

You said that platypuses are on a side branch from echidnas, but the
fossil record of monotremes supports a platypus-like morphology for
almost the entirety of monotreme evolution, with echidnas being more
specialized than platypuses and having diverged some 50 Ma. So how am I
misrepresenting you? Also, you mentioned evolutionary trees, not
phylogenetic trees.

>
> I'm a topologist, remember?

Unfortunately.

>
>
>> and as far as I`m aware it was the echidnas who are
>> more derived than platypuses are. Anyways, that's not the point. You're
>> assuming that in cladistics one taxon is inferior to another by account
>> of the interval between the separation of the two taxa in geological
>> time from one another, when that is not the case, both are as "evolved"
>> as the other.
>
> Sorry, you're just plain clueless about what I'm about.

You're being deliberately misleading when you write, then.

>
>> I've even heard for people supporting terms like "basal" to be kicked
>> out, and for good reason. Being a "basal" taxon is inherently
>> meaningless,
>
> Unless one is ancestral to the whole clade. But that is anathema
> to you and all "modern systematists" *sensu* Harshman.

More slander from Peter the Great.

>
>> because they are both products of evolution, are monkeys
>> inferior to gibbons because gibbons are apes, and apes are supposedly
>> more "evolved" than monkeys, due to our own anthropocentrism? Are
>> ostriches less "evolved" than albatrosses?
>
> <sigh> Did you get the hint when I wrote, "I'm a topologist, remember?"?
> You are really barking up the wrong tree.
>
>>>
>>> And the only reason the phylogenetic trees provide more evidence of
>>> evolution is that the construction of evolutionary trees has stagnated
>>> for several decades, thanks to the aggressive ideology of their critics.
>>
>>
>> Fascinating, more mindless drivel coming from the mouth of Peter the
>> Magnificent. Is there any post of yours that isn't hissing with contempt?
>
> Learn the difference between a Jeremiad and a post hissing with
> contempt, you contempt-oozing asshole.

Whoa, whoa. I thought we were supposed to be good ambassadors here, jackass!

>
> And learn the difference between insulting someone like you just
> did me, and refuting him.

See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.

>
> Harshman at least insulted what I wrote rather than insulting me.
> Not that he was any better at refuting it than you are.
>
>>
>>
>>>
>>>> I get your point from your
>>>> twisted POV, but I still would've gone for a better title.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> "the cladogram is not an expression of ancestor-descendant
>>>>> relationships; it is not a phylogenetic tree."
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> She makes the same mistake of thinking "phylogenetic" means
>>>>> what it used to mean in the midst of a longer quote on the same page:
>>>>
>>>> I wasn't aware that the term "phylogenetic" had changed definitions.
>>>> Please enlighten, oh wise one.
>>>
>>> In the olden days, "evolutionary" and "phylogenetic" both encompassed
>>> what the two together now encompass. Nevermore, as the raven quoth
>>> in Poe's poem, shall they be synonymous or even compatible.
>>
>> That's a subjective opinion, not a statement of fact.
>
> You're wrong about the present, but would be delighted if I was
> wrong about what the future will bring.

CITE?

>
>> I`m consulting a
>> dictionary right now, and the definition hasn't changed. But if your
>> word trumps the scientific definition of "phylogenetic" as it has
>> trumped many other instances in the past, so be it.
>>
>>
>>>
>>>>> "...any given cladogram is usually consistent with multiple
>>>>> phylogenetic trees. ..."
>>>>>
>>>>> Of course, she means "evolutionary trees", and, at the end of
>>>>> the quoted text, she gets a related term right:
>
> <snip of off-topic digression>
>
>
>>>>> "In other words, the very goal of evolutionary systematics -- the
>>>>> determination of ancestor-descendant relationships -- is on the
>>>>> cladistic method not just unattained but unattainable."
>>>
>>> And all three of you -- Harshman, Janis, and yourself -- are perfectly
>>> happy with that. I'm not.
>>
>> Thanks for all the "compliments", it means a lot.
>
> Here, I was being very factual. You may take what I wrote as a compliment
> if you wish.

Bullshit.

>
> Peter Nyikos
> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> University of So. Carolina
> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos/
>

--
http://thrinaxodon.org/

"Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." -
Theodosius Doubzhansky

"If a man would follow, today, the teachings of the Old Testament, he
would be a criminal. If he would strictly follow the teachings of the
New, he would be insane."
—Robert G. Ingersoll

"If Con is the opposite of Pro, what is the opposite of Progress?" -
Mark Twain

"Sex and sleep alone make me conscious that I am mortal." - Alexander
the Great

"Diplomacy, n. The patriotic art of lying for one's country." - Ambrose
Burns

[Peter Nyikos]

On Monday, May 8, 2017 at 11:41:49 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> On 5/8/17 6:56 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > Harshman's been wanting me to return to s.b.p. and reply to
> > his unanswered follow-ups to me, but on this thread it's more fun to reply
> > to you and comment on his deathless prose in the process.
>
> Now that's pathological.

Oh, stop being a wet blanket. You get to reply either way.

> > On Friday, April 14, 2017 at 8:42:50 PM UTC-4, Oxyaena wrote:
> >> On 4/12/2017 5:11 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>> I lost track of this thread for a while, as did you earlier, I see:
> >>>
> >>> On Monday, March 13, 2017 at 2:00:30 PM UTC-4, Oxyaena wrote:
> >>>> On 1/31/2017 9:33 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> >>>>> I have long delayed my return to talk.origins and s.b.p. because I have
> >>>>> become intensely involved on Amazon.com in the blog that goes with
> >>>>> Aaron Baldwin's review of Stephen Meyer's _Darwin's Doubt_.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Christine Janis is, in some ways, the counterpart of John Harshman there.
> >>>>> She is almost as sold on "phylogenetic systematics" as Harshman.
> >>>>> The following post, done in reply to her, explains the scare quotes.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Christine M. Janis wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> So, yes, dogs will stay dogs. How could it possibly be otherwise?
> >>>>>> No organism can abandon its phylogenetic and evolutionary history."
> >>>>
> >>>> Does that mean that I`m still a choanoflagellate?
> >>>
> >>> I'm not sure about that since the various cells of sponges might have
> >>> different ancestors, some of which may not be choanflagellates.
> >
> > Harshman claims all cells of a modern sponge, including the ameboid and
> > the collared, have the same genome, but he was too lazy to give a
> > reference.
>
> No, it's that I didn't think a reference was necessary. Sponges are
> animals. A sponge grows from a single fertilized egg, just like other
> animals. A fertilized egg is a single cell.

Some sponges grow from little chunks torn off from sponges. For many
years there was even an organism identified as "Proterospongia." Then
it was established that these were little pieces of sponges.

The question is, do all these little chunks trace their ancestry
back to a single fertilized egg within a thousand years or less?

By the way, has it been established that a Portuguese Man of War
also comes from a single fertilized egg? If not, how do they
manage to reproduce MORE faithfully than "bath sponges"?

>
> > And even if he is right, it still needs to be established that we belong
> > to the sponge crown group rather than the sponge total group.

Oops, I was guilty of forgetting proper terminology. What I should have
said was "...rather than the clade formed by sponges and ctenophores."

From a classical POV, however, the real question is whether we are
descended from something that anyone would identify as a sponge,
before performing DNA analysis on it.

> Most recent phylogenetic analyses show sponges as monophyletic, so we
> belong to neither.

You're talking about crown group sponges, so you are committing
the fallacy of begging the question.

> >>> But you
> >>> are almost certainly an acoel, originally a primitive form of bilaterian
> >>> once subsumed under Platyhelminthes.
> >
> > Harshman disagreed and again failed to give a reference.
>
> As did you for your claim. I'm away from home right now, but could find
> one in a couple of days. But so could you.

Over a week has passed. Any progress?

I tend to be leery of phylogenetic analyses since they labor under
a compulsion to move everything away from the nodes. Unless ALL species
of acoels have been analyzed, we cannot be sure that we aren't acoels.

And note, that includes acoel species not yet discovered. But if it
includes all known acoels, I'll concede the point.

> >>> That is, according to Janis and Harshman.
> >>>
> >>>>> Yeah, you and I are still fish and will stay fish in the *de rigeur*
> >>>>> terminology of cladistic systematics. Too bad The Incredible Mr. Limpet
> >>>>> didn't know that when he wished "more than anything else" to be a fish in
> >>>>> that old children's movie. But he did get what he really wished for:
> >>>>> to be a non-tetrapod fish.
> >
> >>>>
> >>>> Wrong, fish are a paraphyletic group,
> >>>
> >>> As are dinosaurs *sensu* Romer, as in "non-avian dinosaur".
> >>>
> >>> But Harshman has rejected those old classifications. When I brought up the
> >>> case of Mr. Limpet to him years ago, right here in s.b.p. he claimed to be
> >>> looking forward to the day when all children would know that Mr. Limpet
> >>> was already a fish, only not a non-tetrapod fish.
> >
> > This time around, Harshman either revealed that he never saw the movie,
> > or he cracked a childish joke that Mr. Limpet should have really
> > wanted to become a mollusk. As though Beetle Bailey should have wanted
> > to become an insect.
>
> Must you characterize each and every phenomenon with a gratuituous
> adjective? I don't consider the joke childish.

Thanks for letting us know more about your sense of humor.

> >>> That got me to wondering whether he had Asperger's syndrome, and he
> >>> surprised me immensely by admitting that his wife often accused him of having Asperger's.
> >>>
> >>> But don't let that go to your head. Posting mountains of spam to
> >>> overwhelm sci.bio.paleontology is indicative of something more serious
> >>> than Asperger's.
> >>
> >> I`m flattered, jackass.
> >
> > Looks like you are pining for the "good old" days when you almost
> > destroyed sci.bio.paleontology.
>
> And this is why you prefer to respond to him rather than me?

Oxyaena tends to be more informative about paleontological details.
Plus [s]he is more interesting than you when [s]he is in a good mood.
This time the mood seemed promising.

And I wasn't wrong. Oxyaena's reply was more informative than
yours. And while [s]he got more snarky towards the end, the level
of snarkiness wasn't very irritating.

>
> >>>> themselves a
> >>>> paraphyletic group, technically, lungfish are more closely related to
> >>>> tetrapos than to other "fish", yet they're still classified as "fish".
> >>>
> >>> Yes, as are tetrapods, in the World According to Harshman and Janis.
> >
> > Harshman has consigned biologists like Richard Zander to history
> > by claiming all modern systematists use "is" terminology instead
> > of "descended from" terminology.
>
> I don't think I've said "all". But it's pretty close to that.
>
> > So in his world, we are either sponges or else sponges are not
> > even our ancestors.
>
> True. The latter.
>
> > However, yours is a glass darkly, since you give no specifics,
> > not even alleged ones. It is when I give damning evidence that
> > Harshman REALLY can't look at himself in the mirror. As long
> > as he thinks he can get the upper hand, Harshman scoffs at mirrors.
>
> Is this post not just one long violation of the sbp agreement?

Sorry, I got carried away in this one place, and I apologize.
However, I plead not guilty to any other violations. Recall,
for example, that I *praised* you for having had the courage
to admit that your wife often accuses you of having Asperger's.

By the way, I put Asperger's in the same category as purely
physical deviations from "normal" such as cerebral palsy; nothing
to be ashamed of since you had no choice in the matter. But that
does not stop me from pointing to effects that you CAN do something
about, and it doesn't stop less objective people from looking
askance at you. That's why I praised you for your candor on that
occasion.

> > There is a consensus among the movers and shakers of systematics,
> > but it has nothing to do with science, as Richard Zander and
> > a number of others know.
>
> The problem isn't what you don't know, it's what you do know that ain't so.

The difference between science and ideology ain't one of them. If you
can't tell the difference, it is probably the fault of the milieu
in which you have been steeped so completely, you are like the
proverbial fish who isn't aware of the fact that it is in water.

Peter Nyikos
Professor of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--

[Peter Nyikos]

I hope you realize I was being sarcastic.

> >
> >>>> themselves a
> >>>> paraphyletic group, technically, lungfish are more closely related to
> >>>> tetrapos than to other "fish", yet they're still classified as "fish".
> >>>
> >>> Yes, as are tetrapods, in the World According to Harshman and Janis.
> >
> > Harshman has consigned biologists like Richard Zander to history
> > by claiming all modern systematists use "is" terminology instead
> > of "descended from" terminology.

> >
> > So in his world, we are either sponges or else sponges are not
> > even our ancestors.
>
> I would think that we aren't sponges, but belong to Metazoa with them,
> placozoan-like organisms are more likely to be the ancestors of
> Eumetazoans in mine eyes. You see, Placozoans have tissues, unlike
> sponges, and sponges are too specialized for them to be our ancestors,
> rather than a distant cousin on the evolutionary tree.

Do you remember the talk.origins thread about the mysterious
"Deep Sea Purple Sock" whose affinities had finally been worked out?
IIRC it was basal to Bilateria (or even Eumetazoa?)

> Of course, what I`m saying is speculation, because unfortunately the
> fossil record of Ediacaran fossils is too bizarre to come up with any
> meaningful conclusions of Eumetazoan ancestry outside of educated
> guesses and a few anomalies such as *Kimberella*.

Kimberella is not only an anomaly, it is something of an enigma.
Some think it is a stem mollusk, others that it is a stem Lopotrochozoan
(sp?) and still others that it is a stem bilaterian.

> >>>>> By the way, it's nice to see you distinguish between "phylogenetic"
> >>>>> and "evolutionary". This weekend, I got my first look at the epilogue
> >>>>> in the second edition of _Darwin's Doubt_ and was amused to see that
> >>>>> Keynyn Brysse did not realize how thoroughly the word "phylogenetic"
> >>>>> has been expropriated by the cladistic systematists. She is quoted on
> >>>>> p. 436 as saying,
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> More irrelevant drivel coming from the mouth of Peter the Magnificent
> >>>> himself.
> >>>
> >>> That's no way to reassure us that your mountains of spam are
> >>> permanently behind you.
> >>
> >> Yeah, thanks for the reminder, jackass. Have you looked in a mirror lately?
> >
> > Sure. Unlike "God" in "Steambath" and Harshman, I have no phobia
> > against having a mirror held up to me.
>
> I hear mirrors are in high demand for mathematicians with delusions of
> grandeur.

I have none. You should take a closer look at jillery or Ray Martinez
some day, if you want to see someone with real delusions of grandeur.

> >
> > However, yours is a glass darkly, since you give no specifics,
> > not even alleged ones. It is when I give damning evidence that
> > Harshman REALLY can't look at himself in the mirror. As long
> > as he thinks he can get the upper hand, Harshman scoffs at mirrors.

I apologized to Harshman for that crack a short while ago. It is
really mostly based on his behavior in talk.origins and has no
place in view of our agreement.

>
> I have to agree with that.

You have not signed onto our agreement, so you are still free
to talk like that here.

> >
> >>>> Christine Janis isn't even in this newsgroup.
> >>>
> >>> She did post on talk.origins in several threads over the last three
> >>> years, one of which she began herself. And she is a research
> >>> paleontologist, a status even Harshman cannot claim -- nor aspire to,
> >>> at his age, by all available evidence.
> >>
> >> Interesting, but as far as I`m aware talk.origins and sbp are two
> >> different newsgroups, with only a few tenuous links, I`m afraid.
> >
> > And you have me to thank for a lot of that. Can you ever bear to
> > sign on to our agreement to leave our talk.origins grievances behind us
> > when posting here, and to behave like good ambassadors? You'd have
> > to leave off your "jackass" talk if you did that, so that might
> > be too much for you to bear.
>
> I haven't seen anyone behaving like "good ambassadors" here, outside of
> not swearing.

True, Harshman has pushed the envelope many times in the last three
months, both in the direction of probable violations and in the
direction of seeing violations by others where none exist. After a
while I even got into the act, after Harshman had treated Ruben
Safir like dirt and almost drove him from s.b.p.

Still, my clashes with Harshman here are a far cry from the knockdown,
drag-out battles we have in talk.origins.

> >
> >>>> This doesn't flow
> >>>> with the structure of this paragraph, but I'll put it here anyways. Your
> >>>> title "phylogenetic vs evolutionary" is an oxymoron, because there is
> >>>> nothing inherently contradictory between the two,
> >>>
> >>> No, but Harshman and Janis want to banish the latter from systematics,
> >>> and they claim to be so much mainstream that they tell me to get over
> >>> the fact that their side has won.
> >>
> >> Bullshit, there is no "side", there's the scientific consensus,
> >
> > There is a consensus among the movers and shakers of systematics,
> > but it has nothing to do with science, as Richard Zander and
> > a number of others know.
> >
> >> and then
> >> there's you, a burnt out old man yearning for the good old days before
> >> cladistics.
> >
> > I'm sure Harshman approves of this last comment, as does Erik Simpson
> > and Richard Norman.
> >
> > But Cal King is the person who fits your description, not me. He was opposed
> > to cladistic techniques and not just to the ideology of cladophilia, which
> > is all I've ever voiced opposition to.
>
> Cladophilia? Is that an actual term or something you pulled out of your
> ass?

Neither. I coined it with the following precise meaning: the intolerance
of paraphyletic taxa in any formal classification. It includes not
tolerating the existence of evolutionary classifications in parallel
to the cladistic, whereas I want a dual classification somewhat like
some libraries using Dewey Decimal and others the Library of Congress
system.

> I have to agree with you that "cladophilia" is a detriment to the
> field of systematics as a whole, however.

Now that I've told you the precise definition, do you agree?

Continued in next reply to this post of yours, perhaps later this evening.

Peter Nyikos
Professor of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
Univ. of So. Carolina
http://people.math.sc.edu

[John Harshman]

Yes, they can do that. But they're all capable of sexual reproduction too.

> For many
> years there was even an organism identified as "Proterospongia." Then
> it was established that these were little pieces of sponges.
>
> The question is, do all these little chunks trace their ancestry
> back to a single fertilized egg within a thousand years or less?

Why the time limit? Sure, sponges can reproduce asexually for quite a
long time. Why is that relevant to the question I was trying to answer
for you?

> By the way, has it been established that a Portuguese Man of War
> also comes from a single fertilized egg? If not, how do they
> manage to reproduce MORE faithfully than "bath sponges"?

What do you mean by "reproduce MORE faithfully"? Like sponges, they
reproduce both sexually and asexually.

>>> And even if he is right, it still needs to be established that we belong
>>> to the sponge crown group rather than the sponge total group.
>
> Oops, I was guilty of forgetting proper terminology. What I should have
> said was "...rather than the clade formed by sponges and ctenophores."
>
> From a classical POV, however, the real question is whether we are
> descended from something that anyone would identify as a sponge,
> before performing DNA analysis on it.

You mean "did it look like a sponge"? I have no idea. You are correct
that we can use phylogeny to try to figure that out, if that's indeed
what you meant.

>> Most recent phylogenetic analyses show sponges as monophyletic, so we
>> belong to neither.
>
> You're talking about crown group sponges, so you are committing
> the fallacy of begging the question.

You must understand that total group sponges will not include you if
crown group sponges do not. Right?

>>>>> But you
>>>>> are almost certainly an acoel, originally a primitive form of bilaterian
>>>>> once subsumed under Platyhelminthes.
>>>
>>> Harshman disagreed and again failed to give a reference.
>>
>> As did you for your claim. I'm away from home right now, but could find
>> one in a couple of days. But so could you.
>
> Over a week has passed. Any progress?

Have you made any progress? Can you use google?

If you want to know modern views of phylogenetics I recommend The Tree
of Life, P. Vargas and R. Zardoya, eds., Sinauer Associates, 2014. Of
course it's far out of date, but any book will be. (Oddly enough, the
chapter on birds is quite bad; but it's an exception.)

That book shows acoels as the sister group of all other bilaterians.
While it's possible given that topology to suppose that the common
ancestor looked something like an acoel, it's equally possible that it
didn't. At any rate, the clade "acoel" would not include you. The book
also mentions that some recent analyses have placed acoels as sister to
Xenoburbellida within deuterostomes.

One thing I don't like about the book is that it isn't very well
referenced, so it's hard to say which recent analyses the book draws
from. But it's a handy summary.

> I tend to be leery of phylogenetic analyses since they labor under
> a compulsion to move everything away from the nodes. Unless ALL species
> of acoels have been analyzed, we cannot be sure that we aren't acoels.

You place restrictions on phylogenetic analyses that you don't place
elsewhere. Can we not be sure that a trilobite is a trilobite unless ALL
species of trilobites have been analyzed? It should be enough that we
have some idea of relationships among acoels and include a
representative of every group that might be relevant.

> And note, that includes acoel species not yet discovered. But if it
> includes all known acoels, I'll concede the point.

That is less generous of you than you may imagine.

We disagree on the informativeness of Oxyaena's reply. And mine.

>>>>>> themselves a
>>>>>> paraphyletic group, technically, lungfish are more closely related to
>>>>>> tetrapos than to other "fish", yet they're still classified as "fish".
>>>>>
>>>>> Yes, as are tetrapods, in the World According to Harshman and Janis.
>>>
>>> Harshman has consigned biologists like Richard Zander to history
>>> by claiming all modern systematists use "is" terminology instead
>>> of "descended from" terminology.
>>
>> I don't think I've said "all". But it's pretty close to that.
>>
>>> So in his world, we are either sponges or else sponges are not
>>> even our ancestors.
>>
>> True. The latter.
>>
>>> However, yours is a glass darkly, since you give no specifics,
>>> not even alleged ones. It is when I give damning evidence that
>>> Harshman REALLY can't look at himself in the mirror. As long
>>> as he thinks he can get the upper hand, Harshman scoffs at mirrors.
>>
>> Is this post not just one long violation of the sbp agreement?
>
> Sorry, I got carried away in this one place, and I apologize.
> However, I plead not guilty to any other violations. Recall,
> for example, that I *praised* you for having had the courage
> to admit that your wife often accuses you of having Asperger's.

I have no interest in your praise of my "courage". And we disagree on
the offensiveness of some of your other comments.

> By the way, I put Asperger's in the same category as purely
> physical deviations from "normal" such as cerebral palsy; nothing
> to be ashamed of since you had no choice in the matter. But that
> does not stop me from pointing to effects that you CAN do something
> about, and it doesn't stop less objective people from looking
> askance at you. That's why I praised you for your candor on that
> occasion.

You should note that I don't in fact have Asperger's.

>>> There is a consensus among the movers and shakers of systematics,
>>> but it has nothing to do with science, as Richard Zander and
>>> a number of others know.
>>
>> The problem isn't what you don't know, it's what you do know that ain't so.
>
> The difference between science and ideology ain't one of them. If you
> can't tell the difference, it is probably the fault of the milieu
> in which you have been steeped so completely, you are like the
> proverbial fish who isn't aware of the fact that it is in water.

Let me suggest that you, by comparison, are living on the moon and have
never actually seen water. You are not steeped enough to know whether
the consensus has anything to do with science.

[Oxyaena]

I do. You are more literal-minded than I realized, Professor.

>
>>>
>>>>>> themselves a
>>>>>> paraphyletic group, technically, lungfish are more closely related to
>>>>>> tetrapos than to other "fish", yet they're still classified as "fish".
>>>>>
>>>>> Yes, as are tetrapods, in the World According to Harshman and Janis.
>>>
>>> Harshman has consigned biologists like Richard Zander to history
>>> by claiming all modern systematists use "is" terminology instead
>>> of "descended from" terminology.
>
>>>
>>> So in his world, we are either sponges or else sponges are not
>>> even our ancestors.
>>
>> I would think that we aren't sponges, but belong to Metazoa with them,
>> placozoan-like organisms are more likely to be the ancestors of
>> Eumetazoans in mine eyes. You see, Placozoans have tissues, unlike
>> sponges, and sponges are too specialized for them to be our ancestors,
>> rather than a distant cousin on the evolutionary tree.
>
> Do you remember the talk.origins thread about the mysterious
> "Deep Sea Purple Sock" whose affinities had finally been worked out?
> IIRC it was basal to Bilateria (or even Eumetazoa?)
>

No, I don't.

>> Of course, what I`m saying is speculation, because unfortunately the
>> fossil record of Ediacaran fossils is too bizarre to come up with any
>> meaningful conclusions of Eumetazoan ancestry outside of educated
>> guesses and a few anomalies such as *Kimberella*.
>
> Kimberella is not only an anomaly, it is something of an enigma.
> Some think it is a stem mollusk, others that it is a stem Lopotrochozoan
> (sp?) and still others that it is a stem bilaterian.

Which is in essence what I already said. But it could be evidence for
the predation hypothesis of the cause of the Cambrian explosion,
*Kimberella* would likely have been a carnivore, it I compare it to
present-day sea slugs, so it may have been a predator, causing the
evolution of the small shelly fauna of the Terminal Ediacaran and
Earliest Cambrian periods. This *is* speculation, but sea snails tend to
be predatory creatures, and other marine invertebrates, such as
priapulids, are also carnivorous. There's even evidence for Priapulid
like drilling into Ediacaran fossils, suggesting predation *was* present
in the Ediacaran period.

>
>
>>>>>>> By the way, it's nice to see you distinguish between "phylogenetic"
>>>>>>> and "evolutionary". This weekend, I got my first look at the epilogue
>>>>>>> in the second edition of _Darwin's Doubt_ and was amused to see that
>>>>>>> Keynyn Brysse did not realize how thoroughly the word "phylogenetic"
>>>>>>> has been expropriated by the cladistic systematists. She is quoted on
>>>>>>> p. 436 as saying,
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> More irrelevant drivel coming from the mouth of Peter the Magnificent
>>>>>> himself.
>>>>>
>>>>> That's no way to reassure us that your mountains of spam are
>>>>> permanently behind you.
>>>>
>>>> Yeah, thanks for the reminder, jackass. Have you looked in a mirror lately?
>>>
>>> Sure. Unlike "God" in "Steambath" and Harshman, I have no phobia
>>> against having a mirror held up to me.
>>
>> I hear mirrors are in high demand for mathematicians with delusions of
>> grandeur.
>
> I have none. You should take a closer look at jillery or Ray Martinez
> some day, if you want to see someone with real delusions of grandeur.

Psychological projection is a classic tool utilized by egomaniacal

mathematicians with delusions of grandeur.
>
>
>>>

Ruben treats me like dirt.

>
> Still, my clashes with Harshman here are a far cry from the knockdown,
> drag-out battles we have in talk.origins.

True, those threads go on for days, weeks, sometimes even months, versus
the rather short threads we have here. And the content of those threads
are way more violent and abusive than here, in other words, they are
shit-flinging competitions while the arguments we have here are like
those of an old married couple.

Again, something you pulled out of your ass. I think a more appropriate
term would be Paraphylopobia, than Cladophilia. Both are equally inane
terms coined on the wastelands of Usenet for use in the holy war that is
cladistics versus outdated Linnaean classification.

I dislike the idea of a dual classification system, for starters one
shouldn't be trying to be a holdout in science when the Kuhnean paradigm
has shifted from Linnaean taxonomy to cladistics. Why should one insist
on retaining paraphyletic taxa when more accurate classifications are
available, other than plain-old nostalgia.

I have also never seen you give a clear, concise reason for you
insisting on retaining outdated Linnaean taxonomy. Care to give one, Peter?

>
>> I have to agree with you that "cladophilia" is a detriment to the
>> field of systematics as a whole, however.
>
> Now that I've told you the precise definition, do you agree?
>
> Continued in next reply to this post of yours, perhaps later this evening.
>
> Peter Nyikos
> Professor of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> Univ. of So. Carolina
> http://people.math.sc.edu
>

[Oxyaena]

As a side note, eter mentioned Ray and Jillery. Isn't he the one railing
against mentioning t.o. in sbp?

--
http://thrinaxodon.org/

"Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." -
Theodosius Doubzhansky

"If a man would follow, today, the teachings of the Old Testament, he
would be a criminal. If he would strictly follow the teachings of the
New, he would be insane."
—Robert G. Ingersoll

"If Con is the opposite of Pro, what is the opposite of Progress?" -
Mark Twain

"Sex and sleep alone make me conscious that I am mortal." - Alexander
the Great

"Diplomacy, n. The patriotic art of lying for one's country." - Ambrose

Bierce

[Peter Nyikos]

Nah, just unable to fathom your mind after all those mad binges you
indulged in -- let's just hope they are a thing of the past.

> >
> >>
> >>>>
> >>>>>>> themselves a
> >>>>>>> paraphyletic group, technically, lungfish are more closely
> >>>>>>> related to
> >>>>>>> tetrapos than to other "fish", yet they're still classified as
> >>>>>>> "fish".
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Yes, as are tetrapods, in the World According to Harshman and Janis.
> >>>>
> >>>> Harshman has consigned biologists like Richard Zander to history
> >>>> by claiming all modern systematists use "is" terminology instead
> >>>> of "descended from" terminology.
> >>
> >>>>
> >>>> So in his world, we are either sponges or else sponges are not
> >>>> even our ancestors.
> >>>
> >>> I would think that we aren't sponges, but belong to Metazoa with them,
> >>> placozoan-like organisms are more likely to be the ancestors of
> >>> Eumetazoans in mine eyes. You see, Placozoans have tissues, unlike
> >>> sponges, and sponges are too specialized for them to be our ancestors,
> >>> rather than a distant cousin on the evolutionary tree.
> >>
> >> Do you remember the talk.origins thread about the mysterious
> >> "Deep Sea Purple Sock" whose affinities had finally been worked out?
> >> IIRC it was basal to Bilateria (or even Eumetazoa?)
> >>
> > No, I don't.

I'll try to remember to look it up tomorrow.

What do you expect? Neither of you has signed onto our agreement!

A very small sample of such a parallel classification can be found
in Kardong's 2012 textbook, _Vertebrates: Comparative Anatomy,
Function, Evolution_, 6th ed., McGraw-Hill.

It's a high level book, and since the preceding two editions
were in 2009 and 2006, it might have undergone another edition by now.

Surprise: the traditional classification is more extensive.

> > Again, something you pulled out of your ass. I think a more appropriate
> > term would be Paraphylopobia, than Cladophilia. Both are equally inane
> > terms coined on the wastelands of Usenet for use in the holy war that is
> > cladistics versus outdated Linnaean classification.
> >
> > I dislike the idea of a dual classification system, for starters one
> > shouldn't be trying to be a holdout in science when the Kuhnean paradigm
> > has shifted from Linnaean taxonomy to cladistics. Why should one insist
> > on retaining paraphyletic taxa when more accurate classifications are
> > available, other than plain-old nostalgia.
> >
> > I have also never seen you give a clear, concise reason for you
> > insisting on retaining outdated Linnaean taxonomy. Care to give one, Peter?

I've done it at least twice before, but perhaps you haven't
been privy to any of them. But trying to find them for you would
be too time-consuming, so I'll give yet another one here.

The traditional classification gives every animal its own
genus, family, order, etc. and if there are a lot of related
ones, we get subfamilies, infrafamilies, etc. The cladistic
can do the same for EXTANT animals but the further back we go,
the worse it gets. Tiktaalik's next cladistic taxon up may be
the family Elpistostegidae or it may be a huge clade containing
all of Tetrapoda and much else; and even if the former is true,
the family only has two genera, and the next higher up is
that huge clade of all land vertebrates.

On the other hand, the Linnean classification might have a superfamily
that includes both this family and Elginerpeton, and if traditional
systematists had been allowed to remain sufficiently numerous, they
might have by now been able to assure us that an ancestor of all
tetrapods lurks somewhere within this superfamily, as surely
as we can say that an ancestor of Equus lurks somewhere in the
genus Merychippus.

To make a long story short, the dream of every evolutionary
systematist (of whom there are precious few living today)
should be that some time, in the distant future, most families
at least of mammals will have an *evolutionary* (NOT "phylogenetic")
tree like that for Equidae. See the one in the talk.origins archive,
in Kathleen Hunt's FAQ, with every genus and numerous
species plotted. The technique for this is to keep narrowing
down ancestries to as small a paraphyletic taxon as possible,
and gradually improving the precision as more and more
fossils come to light.

> >>> I have to agree with you that "cladophilia" is a detriment to the
> >>> field of systematics as a whole, however.
> >>
> >> Now that I've told you the precise definition, do you agree?
> >>
> >> Continued in next reply to this post of yours, perhaps later this
> >> evening.
> >>
> >> Peter Nyikos
> >> Professor of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> >> Univ. of So. Carolina
> >> http://people.math.sc.edu
> >>
> >
> >
> As a side note, eter mentioned Ray and Jillery. Isn't he the one railing
> against mentioning t.o. in sbp?

Nope, that wasn't part of the agreement. What has you confused is
our agreement to leave our [meaning the cosignees'] personal
grievances from t.o. behind when we post here. Everyone else is
fair game, although we hardly ever take advantage of it.

Peter Nyikos [see above for a longer virtual .sig]

[Oxyaena]

We literally know next to nothing of the Hunnic language, or even what
ethnicity they were. People have tried linking them to the Xiongnu that
plagued Han-dynasty China, by several links including claiming that the
term "Hun" is ultimately derived from "Xiongnu". However, I see several
problems with that theory, in that we don't know what the Huns called
themselves, the only surviving words we have are most like Indo-European
loanwords, the fact that besides a small, and bizarre, phonetic
similarity, as well as the fact that besides a few contacts between the
Han Chinese and the Romans in the second century CE, long before the
Huns, and a 200-300 year interval between the Xiongnu and the Huns, it's
unlikely in my eyes there is a verifiable connection between the Huns
and the Xiongnu.

The name "Attila" itself is Germanic, as he shows up as a benevolent
king in Germanic lore, contrast that with the Roman depiction of him as
the "Scourge of God". There is a speech preserved by Jordanes that was
given by Attila:

"Here you stand, after conquering mighty nations and subduing the world.
I therefore think it foolish for me to goad you with words, as though
you were men who had not been proved in action. Let a new leader or an
untried army resort to that. It is not right for me to say anything
common, nor ought you to listen. For what is war but your usual custom?
Or what is sweeter for a brave man than to seek revenge with his own
hand? It is a right of nature to glut the soul with vengeance. Let us
then attack the foe eagerly; for they are ever the bolder who make the
attack. Despise this union of discordant races! To defend oneself by
alliance is proof of cowardice. See, even before our attack they are
smitten with terror. They seek the heights, they seize the hills and,
repenting too late, clamor for protection against battle in the open
fields. You know how slight a matter the Roman attack is. While they are
still gathering in order and forming in one line with locked shields,
they are checked, I will not say by the first wound, but even by the
dust of battle. Then on to the fray with stout hearts, as is your wont.
Despise their battle line. Attack the Alani, smite the Visigoths! Seek
swift victory in that spot where the battle rages. For when the sinews
are cut the limbs soon relax, nor can a body stand when you have taken
away the bones. Let your courage rise and your own fury burst forth! Now
show your cunning, Huns, now your deeds of arms! Let the wounded exact
in return the death of his foe; let the unwounded revel in slaughter of
the enemy. No spear shall harm those who are sure to live; and those who
are sure to die Fate overtakes even in peace. And finally, why should
Fortune have made the Huns victorious over so many nations, unless it
were to prepare them for the joy of this conflict. Who was it revealed
to our sires the path through the Maeotian swamp, for so many ages a
closed secret? Who, moreover, made armed men yield to you, when you were
as yet unarmed? Even a mass of federated nations could not endure the
sight of the Huns. I am not deceived in the issue;--here is the field so
many victories have promised us. I shall hurl the first spear at the
foe. If any can stand at rest while Attila fights, he is a dead man."

The source is from here:
http://people.ucalgary.ca/~vandersp/Courses/texts/prisfr8.html

Funny, this "vision" of yours is exactly the opposite of what you were
preaching a few weeks-to-months ago, when you were railing against any
inclusion of cladistics in any way, shape, or form. So much for
intellectual integrity. But there's a minor problem in your
classification of Elpistostegidae, for one, Elpistostegidae is outside
of the crown group Tetrapoda of the clade Tetrapodamorpha, sort of like
a "Tetrapodiform" akin to the mammaliaformes, not quite Tetrapods but
damn near close to it. But I disagree and agree simultaneously with the
dual system, I don't agree with taking away traditional systematics
entirely, but I disagree with the concept of a paraphyletic taxon still
existing. It's like keeping Condylarthra as a valid taxon despite being
a taxonomic waste basket.

Condylarthra has already been dismantled mind you, with Meridiungulates,
Phenacodontids, Hypsodontids, and others outside of Condylarthra like
Desmostylia and Anthracobunidae moved to the stem-Perissodactyla,
Arctocyonids being placed as stem-artiodactyls, among others. But my
analogy is still valid.

>
> On the other hand, the Linnean classification might have a superfamily
> that includes both this family and Elginerpeton, and if traditional
> systematists had been allowed to remain sufficiently numerous, they
> might have by now been able to assure us that an ancestor of all
> tetrapods lurks somewhere within this superfamily, as surely
> as we can say that an ancestor of Equus lurks somewhere in the
> genus Merychippus.
>

That's a red herring, you could figure out that the most recent commont
ancestor of Tetrapods is found in the Elpistostegidae by using
cladistics, and your analogy with *Equus* is fallacious, simply because
the evolutionary history of the equid family is well known.


[snip mindless drivel]

>
>
>>>>> I have to agree with you that "cladophilia" is a detriment to the
>>>>> field of systematics as a whole, however.
>>>>
>>>> Now that I've told you the precise definition, do you agree?
>>>>
>>>> Continued in next reply to this post of yours, perhaps later this
>>>> evening.
>>>>
>>>> Peter Nyikos
>>>> Professor of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
>>>> Univ. of So. Carolina
>>>> http://people.math.sc.edu
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>> As a side note, eter mentioned Ray and Jillery. Isn't he the one railing
>> against mentioning t.o. in sbp?
>
> Nope, that wasn't part of the agreement. What has you confused is
> our agreement to leave our [meaning the cosignees'] personal
> grievances from t.o. behind when we post here. Everyone else is
> fair game, although we hardly ever take advantage of it.
>
> Peter Nyikos [see above for a longer virtual .sig]
>