[Taxacom] Another transatlantic rafting primate named this year

[Frederick W. Schueler]

On 21-Dec.-20 9:48 a.m., John Grehan via Taxacom wrote:
> "Bayesian clock–based phylogenetic analysis nests this genus
> (Ucayalipithecus) deep within the otherwise Afro-Arabian clade
> Parapithecoidea and indicates that transatlantic rafting of the lineage
> leading to Ucayalipithecus likely took place between ~35 and ~32 million
> years ago, a dispersal window that includes the major worldwide drop in sea
> level that occurred near the Eocene-Oligocene boundary.  "
> 
> Really Ken, a  phylogeny cannot indicate any kind of rafting, or that the
> age was 35-32 Ma. This is another fabrication. So, Ken, I challenge you
> again to demonstrate that is empirically based. Just repeating a claim does
> not make it true (even though this has become a common technique by a
> certain politician here that does not mean that science has to follow suit).

* regardless of the nesting of the phylogenies, isn't the greater number 
of instances of inferred 'rafting' from Africa to South America vs the 
other direction evidence that dispersal did occur, in the direction 
suggested by ocean currents?

In 1975 we were in a restaurant in southern Pennsylvania, and hearing a 
party at a nearby table refer to paper napkins as serviettes, we asked 
them where in Canada they were from - and it turned out they were from a 
farm just across the road from where we were living at the time. Rare 
events do occur, and over millions of years the probabilities add up.

fred.
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