[Taxacom] What is Homo sapiens

Wed May 30 16:36:21 CDT 2018

No. You can’t derogate scientific theory as “subjective.” That is like postmoderns saying science is nonsense because Einstein proved all things are relative and Heisenberg proved all things are uncertain, and scientific papers are just snips of other people’s papers stuck together in different ways.

-------
Richard H. Zander
Missouri Botanical Garden – 4344 Shaw Blvd. – St. Louis – Missouri – 63110 – USA
richard.zander at mobot.org<mailto:richard.zander at mobot.org>
Web sites: http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/bfna/bfnamenu.htm and http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/resbot/

From: John Grehan [mailto:calabar.john at gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2018 9:54 AM
To: Richard Zander
Cc: Lynn Raw; taxacom
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] What is Homo sapiens

This is another subjective criterion. If it works from a personal perspective is can be subject to subjective critique. It does not matter whether all hominid speciation need be dichotomous or not.

John Grehan

On Wed, May 30, 2018 at 10:50 AM, Richard Zander <Richard.Zander at mobot.org<mailto:Richard.Zander at mobot.org>> wrote:
Gaps are okay, I suppose.

But what about defining a genus as a center of radiation? Of adaptive and/or nearly neutral radiation? Thus, one might look for a central generalist species from which other hominid species diverged through some kind of at least occasionally multichotomous radiation. That is, must all hominid speciation be dichotomous from an unknown ancestor?

-------
Richard H. Zander
Missouri Botanical Garden – 4344 Shaw Blvd. – St. Louis – Missouri – 63110 – USA
richard.zander at mobot.org<mailto:richard.zander at mobot.org>
Web sites: http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/bfna/bfnamenu.htm and http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/resbot/

-----Original Message-----
From: Taxacom [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu<mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>] On Behalf Of John Grehan
Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2018 9:26 AM
To: Lynn Raw
Cc: taxacom
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] What is Homo sapiens

Lynn,

This is criterion, like all others, is arbitrary. Of course if anyone finds it useful to use that choice is personal and therefore beyond objective criticism (but that does not preclude subjective criticism).

John Grehan

On Wed, May 30, 2018 at 10:23 AM, Lynn Raw <lynn at afriherp.org<mailto:lynn at afriherp.org>> wrote:

> John,
>
> Ernst Mayr's 1969 definition in Priciples of Systematic Zoology, p.
> 92, seems pretty logical, especially his recommendation regarding the
> size of the gap being in inverse ratio to the size of the taxon.
>
> Lynn
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> > On 30 May 2018, at 16:01, John Grehan <calabar.john at gmail.com<mailto:calabar.john at gmail.com>> wrote:
> >
> > Ken's observation makes the point that the breadth of a genus and
> > higher category is entirely arbitrary and irrational.
> >
> > John Grehan
> >
> >> On Wed, May 30, 2018 at 9:39 AM, Kenneth Kinman
> >> <kinman at hotmail.com<mailto:kinman at hotmail.com>>
> wrote:
> >>
> >> Dear All,
> >>
> >>      In the conclusions, he says: "By logical extension,
> >> hypothetical neanderthalensis and heidelbergensis clades,
> >> regardless of their relationship to a sapiens clade, should be regarded as separate genera."
> >>
> >>
> >>      I do not agree with that at all.  This is another example of
> >> the oversplitting that many anthropologists have long practiced,
> >> and it
> should
> >> be discouraged, not encouraged.
> >>
> >>                --------------Ken
> >>
> >> ------------------------------
> >> *From:* Taxacom <taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu<mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>> on behalf of
> >> John Grehan <calabar.john at gmail.com<mailto:calabar.john at gmail.com>>
> >> *Sent:* Wednesday, May 30, 2018 7:59 AM
> >> *To:* taxacom
> >> *Subject:* [Taxacom] What is Homo sapiens
> >>
> >> For anyone interested in such questions, see article at
> >>
> >> http://www.isita-org.com/jass/Contents/2016vol94/Schwartz/26963221.
> >> pdf
> >>
> >>
> >> Abstract below
> >>
> >> What constitutes Homo sapiens? Morphology versus received wisdom
> >>
> >> Although Linnaeus coined Homo sapiens in 1735, it was Blumenbach
> >> forty years later who provided the first morphological definition
> >> of the
> species.
> >> Since humans were not then allowed to be ante-Diluvian, his effort
> applied
> >> to the genus, as well. After the Feldhofer Grotto Neanderthal
> >> disproved this creationist notion, and human–fossil hunting became
> >> legitimate, new specimens were allocated either to sapiens or new
> >> species within Homo,
> or
> >> even to new species within new genera. Yet as these taxonomic acts
> >> reflected the morphological differences between specimens, they
> >> failed
> to
> >> address the question: What constitutes H. sapiens? When in 1950
> >> Mayr collapsed all human fossils into Homo, he not only denied
> >> humans a
> diverse
> >> evolutionary past, he also shifted the key to identifying its
> >> species
> from
> >> morphology to geological age – a practice most paleoanthropologists
> still
> >> follow. Thus, for example, H. erectus is the species that preceded H.
> >> sapiens, and H. sapiens is the species into which H. erectus
> >> morphed. In order to deal with a growing morass of morphologically
> >> dissimilar specimens, the non-taxonomic terms “archaic” (AS) and
> >> “anatomically
> modern”
> >> (AMS) were introduced to distinguish between the earlier and later
> versions
> >> of H. sapiens, thereby making the species impossible to define. In
> >> attempting to disentangle fact from scenario, I begin from the
> beginning,
> >> trying to delineate features that may be distinctive of extant
> >> humans
> (ES),
> >> and then turning to the fossils that have been included in the species.
> >> With the exception of Upper Paleolithic humans – e.g. from
> >> Cro-Magnon, Dolni Vestonice, Mladeč – I argue that many specimens
> >> regarded as AMS,
> and
> >> all those deemed AS, are not H. sapiens. The features these AMS do
> >> share with ES suggest the existence of a sapiens clade. Further,
> >> restudy of near-recent fossils, especially from southwestern China
> >> (~11-14.5 ka), reinforces what discoveries such as H. floresiensis
> >> indicate: “If it’s recent, it’s not necessarily H. sapiens”.
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Taxacom Mailing List
> >> Send Taxacom mailing list submissions to:
> >> Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu<mailto:Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
> >>
> >> http://mailman.nhm.ku.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/taxacom
> >> The Taxacom Archive back to 1992 may be searched at:
> >> http://taxacom.markmail.org
> >> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the Web, visit:
> >> http://mailman.nhm.ku.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/taxacom
> >> You can reach the person managing the list at:
> >> taxacom-owner at mailman.nhm.ku.edu<mailto:taxacom-owner at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
> >>
> >> Nurturing Nuance while Assaulting Ambiguity for 31 Some Years,
> 1987-2018.
> >>
> > _______________________________________________
> > Taxacom Mailing List
> > Send Taxacom mailing list submissions to: Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu<mailto:Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
> >
> > http://mailman.nhm.ku.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/taxacom
> > The Taxacom Archive back to 1992 may be searched at:
> http://taxacom.markmail.org
> > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the Web, visit:
> http://mailman.nhm.ku.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/taxacom
> > You can reach the person managing the list at:
> taxacom-owner at mailman.nhm.ku.edu<mailto:taxacom-owner at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
> >
> > Nurturing Nuance while Assaulting Ambiguity for 31 Some Years, 1987-2018.
>
>
_______________________________________________
Taxacom Mailing List
Send Taxacom mailing list submissions to: Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu<mailto:Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>

http://mailman.nhm.ku.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/taxacom
The Taxacom Archive back to 1992 may be searched at: http://taxacom.markmail.org To subscribe or unsubscribe via the Web, visit: http://mailman.nhm.ku.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/taxacom
You can reach the person managing the list at: taxacom-owner at mailman.nhm.ku.edu<mailto:taxacom-owner at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>

Nurturing Nuance while Assaulting Ambiguity for 31 Some Years, 1987-2018.