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

[Richard Zander]

I meant by "ancestor" an ancestral taxon, at some level of resolution.
Realistically, you are correct, Curtis, operationally we can use a
fossil as an "exemplar" of an ancestor at some taxonomic level. I'm
being very cladistic here.
R.

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Richard H. Zander 
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Missouri Botanical Garden
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richard.zander at mobot.org
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Modern Evolutionary Systematics Web site:
http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/resbot/21EvSy.htm
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-----Original Message-----
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
[mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Curtis Clark
Sent: Thursday, June 10, 2010 9:03 PM
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] LOL (was Re: New lizard species)

On 6/10/2010 3:36 PM, Richard Zander wrote:
> A taxacomer has asserted that fossils are not ancestors of anything 
> alive today, maybe because they probably are in lines that died out. 
> Is that the reason? Is it a good reason?
>    
I might be the one you remember. My assertion is that the probability of
any fossil being the ancestor of an organism alive today is effectively
zero (the product of the probability of begetting a lineage extending to
the present and the probability of being fossilized), but the
probability of being a *relative* of an organism alive today is 1.0.

-- 
Curtis Clark                  http://www.csupomona.edu/~jcclark/
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University Web Coordinator, Cal Poly Pomona