[Taxacom] Molecular data and synapomorphies

[Gordon Ramel]

Evolution is, of
> course, long on theory and short on facts.

Actually Evolution is 'Long on Facts' and practically devoid of theory, it is only human understanding of it that is the other way around, but our human understanding of evolution and 'Evolutiuon' itself are two entirely different things.

I like the bit about "the shared ancestral line between oranges and humans" however, it explains a lot of things I have suspected for many years

             Gordon Ramel





--- On Mon, 12/1/08, Richard Zander <Richard.Zander at mobot.org> wrote:

> From: Richard Zander <Richard.Zander at mobot.org>
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Molecular data and synapomorphies
> To: "John Grehan" <jgrehan at sciencebuff.org>, taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> Date: Monday, December 1, 2008, 7:31 PM
> I wrote:
> > Combining analyses of evolutionary taxonomy
> (recognizing paraphyly and
> 
> > giving apposite rank to evolutionary novelties) and
> molecular analyses
> 
> > (genetic continuity) gives a good result that
> maximizes evolutionary 
> > information in a classification.
> 
> John Grehan said:
> But in the case of human origins they appear to give a
> morphologically
> nonsensical result
> 
> Comment: Not so. IF indeed humans and oranges are
> morphologically more
> similar to each other than to chimps and gorillas, we can
> accept the
> molecular lineages and simply assert that the evidence
> indicates that
> the shared ancestral line between oranges and humans was
> similar to
> orangs and humans morphologically, and through punctuated
> equilibrium,
> the short branch leading to chimps and gorillas is
> unresolved. Thus,
> both morphology and molecular studies can be combined.
> Evolution is, of
> course, long on theory and short on facts.
> 
> *****************************
> Richard H. Zander 
> Voice: 314-577-0276
> Missouri Botanical Garden
> PO Box 299
> St. Louis, MO 63166-0299 USA
> richard.zander at mobot.org
> Web sites: http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/resbot/
> and http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/bfna/bfnamenu.htm
> *****************************
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Grehan [mailto:jgrehan at sciencebuff.org] 
> Sent: Monday, December 01, 2008 9:53 AM
> To: Richard Zander; taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> Subject: RE: [Taxacom] Molecular data and synapomorphies
> 
> > From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> [mailto:taxacom-
> > bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Richard
> Zander
> 
> > Comment: What happens in that if you have a terminal
> group of six
> > exemplars, the ones with shared traits of any sort
> will pop out first
> in
> > the cladogram and the ones without any additional
> shared apomorphies
> are
> > tacked on terminally, even if they share nothing more
> than traits that
> > put them in the groups. I've done what John did
> and found exemplars of
> > different genera paired as sister groups on the basis
> of no shared
> data
> > beyond being crowded together.
> 
> Which makes my point - that parsimony analysis of molecular
> data can
> produce nonsensical results - results that have no
> empirical cladistic
> support - which is why parsimony does not equal cladistics
> (as quite a
> few molecular systematists have asserted).
> 
> 
> > Alan DAvid Forrest:
> > 
> > In this case molecular data are just another form of
> data.
> Incongruence
> > between data types requires analysis of what causes
> the incongruence,
> > not rejection of one data in favour of another based
> on a priori
> > preferences.
> > 
> Molecular data are based on a few exemplars and, if
> > reliable, 
> 
> I note the caveat. 
> 
> > Combining analyses of evolutionary taxonomy
> (recognizing paraphyly and
> > giving apposite rank to evolutionary novelties) and
> molecular analyses
> > (genetic continuity) gives a good result that
> maximizes evolutionary
> > information in a classification.
> But in the case of human origins they appear to give a
> morphologically
> nonsensical result
> 
> John Grehan
> 
> 
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