[Taxacom] LOL (was Re: New lizard species)

[Kim van der Linde]

LOL

On 6/9/2010 2:41 PM, Richard Zander wrote:
> When do we get information about macroevolution, i.e. descent with
> modification of taxa?

Richard, where have you been lately?

> "By Odin, how long do we want to provide the christian creationists with
> fodder by producing the so-manniest so-so story about how we hypothesize
> how it maybe could have evolved if we are correct?"
> --Odin has a narrow focus, and his eye is on you. Loki and his band of
> phylogenetic cataphracts and hierophants offer a cult disguised as
> rigorous science.

I love Loki. Sorry that he makes you knees weak......

> Cognitive dissonance based on a choice between (a)
> wealth and power and (b) being called an old-fashioned traditionalist,
> ensures the obvious choice.

Thank you for agreeing with me.

> Cult? (1) Although Hennig's gradualist evolution is piously cited as
> operating in the nodes of a cladistic tree, nodes are never named (or
> they would be paraphyletic).

Whow, no genera, families etc? If that is what it need to have strict 
monophyly, so be it.

> (2) Only traits are mapped on molecular trees, never taxa. This is
> microevolution, which is fine with Christian creationists, who only
> object to macroevolution.\
> (3) The (artificial) principle of strict phylogenetic monophyly
> eliminates from classification any hint of one taxon generating
> evolutionarily another taxon at the same rank or higher, i.e.
> macroevolution. Fine with Christian creationists.

Richard, stop reading those baraminology papers. They have poisoned your 
soul... Never heard of Ancient DNA yet or dinosaur amino acid sequences? 
We have now genetic information of ancestors, isn't that great!

> If Christian creationists were to modify Linnaean classifications into
> their own system, it would be a phylogenetic system. ONLY the explicit
> representation of macroevolution in classification can save systematics
> now.

They made it already, and it is called baraminology. Speciation rates go 
of the chart with them, otherwise the ark would have sunk with the many 
species.

> " group species according to their actually relatedness based on a lot
> of hard data"
> --Phylogenetic relatedness is sister-group relatedness. What about
> ancestor-descendant relatedness.

Ancient DNA? Dinosaur amino-acid sequences?

Kim