N.Wells
Posts: 1836
Joined: Oct. 2005
|
| Quote (GaryGaulin @ Nov. 14 2016,00:29) |
| Quote | | Quote (N.Wells @ Nov. 13 2016,22:35) | | If "humans" include all members of the genus Homo, then shouldn't "chimps" include all members of the genus Pan? This is particularly true since bonobos were only recently identified as a separate species from regular chimps and can still correctly be called pygmy chimpanzees. |
The only thing that matters is that "bonobos" are a "separate species". Case closed. |
|
By your logic, then, everything outside H. sapiens is best considered not "human".
We are not particularly consistent in how broadly we apply different common names to species in the same genus, but there is still a lot of common usage of bonobos as being one sort of chimpanzee:
THE PYGMY CHIMPANZEE: EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY AND BEHAVIOR. Edited by Randall L. Susman. Plenum Press, 1984.
THE LAST APE: PYGMY CHIMPANZEE BEHAVIOR AND ECOLOGY. Takayoshi Kano. Stanford University Press, 1992.
From the IUCN Red List of endangered mammals
http://www.iucnredlist.org/details....ls....0
Scientific Name: Pan paniscus
Species Authority: Schwarz, 1929
Common Name(s):
English – Bonobo, Pygmy Chimpanzee, Gracile Chimpanzee, Dwarf Chimpazee
From the WWF
Common names: Bonobo, dwarf chimpanzee, gracile chimpanzee, pygmy chimpanzee;
| Quote | | Quote (N.Wells @ Nov. 13 2016,22:35) | | As bonobos were only discovered in 1929, Darwin's statement was correct for his time, and since bonobos are still in the chimp genus, his statement *technically* remains correct. |
Where bonobos were discovered first then chimps would be seen as an apeish bonobo. And the four year Trump Age has just begun. The more Darwinian icons that can be safely demolished the better. |
Non sequiturs. And why is is so important to you to demolish "Darwinian icons" that you have to contort your logic to do so? Regardless of what you think of chimps vs bonobos in nomenclature and in relation to us, it remains the case that Darwin extensively compared humans, chimps, gorillas, and orangutans and was correct in identifying chimps as being closer to us than the others.
| Quote | | Quote (N.Wells @ Nov. 13 2016,22:35) | | It is also possible that both regular chimps and Homo sapiens descended from something close to the bonobo, with humans splitting off before the paniscus / troglodytes split, which would make us equidistant from regular chimps and modern bonobos, and if we and bonobos are in the same clade then Pan troglodytes is in there with us. |
Something close to the modern bonobo is all fine by me. Whatever helps unseat chimps from their undeserved reputation of being our closest relative is now of service to science. |
Again, you are abusing facts and terminology in service of your preconceptions. Pan troglodytes and Pan paniscus form a clade that is within the clade of Pan + the hominins. Both living species of Pan are therefore equidistant from us. You are in the position of arguing that one of your first cousins is more closely related to you than another of your first cousins.
http://users.rcn.com/jkimbal....ids.jpg
http://users.rcn.com/jkimbal....es.html
Whether the common ancestor of the second clade was more similar to a bonobo, a regular chimp, or an ancestral hominin remains unknown (and it also remains both a very interesting question and a good reason to separate the concepts of bonobos and chimpanzees for ease of discussion), but that does not affect the closeness of our relationship to regular chimps and bonobos.
It may well be the case that Cousin A and you look quite similar to each other and to your common grandfather while Cousin B looks a bit different from the lot of you, but that does not make Cousin B less of a relative (assuming no parental hanky-panky or adoptions).
| Quote | | Quote (N.Wells @ Nov. 13 2016,22:35) | | Your chromosome-based distinction could be true, but you are getting ahead of the data, as usual, because you have no definitive evidence that that causally relates to our lineage becoming "human". It's possible, but you don't know. Your calling the first 46-46 couple "chromosomal Adam" and "chromosomal Eve" is inviting unnecessary confusion with y-chromosomal Adam and mitochondrial Eve: someone wiser than you would have coined a different term in order to facilitate getting their point across. |
The word "human" is still fuzzily defined. But as far as the general public is concerned many already define a human based on first humans named Adam and Eve. Classification systems will not change, the word is not used in them anyway. It's the sort of thing for "we the people" to decide where you can get used to the way it has already been, for a couple thousand years of so. |
Classification systems of course do change, as knowledge progresses (look up "cladistics", "Pan paniscus", and "Canis lupus familiaris"), but yes, "human" is a fuzzy word that lacks a generally accepted and precise biological definition.
| Quote | | A member of the species Homo sapiens; a human being. A member of any of the extinct species of the genus Homo, such as Homo erectus or Homo habilis, that are considered ancestral or closely related to modern humans. |
"Ancestral or closely related" is more than a tad imprecise. The chromosomal fusion event could be a clarifying distinction, except that when that happened and who that happened to and what its immediate phenotypic consequences were are all unknown.
Re Adam and Eve, there is nothing to be gained by conflating scientific definitions with popular usage, as you have so frequently inadvertently demonstrated. And why does conflating three pairs of Adams and Eves help anything?
|
