Stupidity from the top down. Let's start with what we think other people's conclusion is, and work downwards.

http://io9.com/is-it-too-much-to-ask-th ... 1627417099

Or how about this one:

"My great grandfather was a fish"

I took a look at that IO9 article, and there were some mistakes being perpetuated by people who were attempting to defend evolution.

“Apes and humans share a distant common ancestor”.

Cladistics groups all lineages with common diagnostic traits and delineates further divisions through what these animals which are so alike DIFFER in…

This produces something called a monophyletic hierarchy where diagnostic traits are sourced from the last common ancestor to have had those traits. A polyphyletic hierarchy would instead claim that two species developed exactly the same diagnostic traits independently through coincidence, and not through heredity, but that doesn’t hold up.

Consider humanity.

We not only share a common ancestor with apes, our common ancestor was an ape. And further back we share a common ancestor with apes and monkeys… that WAS a monkey.

That means that humanity is a kind of great ape, which is a kind of monkey, which is a kind of primate, which is a kind of mammal etc…

Inside of primates is a group called simian, this is the clade that contains all apes, and monkeys, and where the pro-simians, or lemurs, tarsiers, and lorisolds drop off of our common ancestry. The next division of note here is the one that seperates the apes and old world monkeys from the new world monkeys.

New world monkeys are platyrrhines, old world monkeys are catarrhines. But both are already monkeys. So the common ancestor to both would have been a monkey. You can’t develop two different strains of monkeys from something that was not already itself a kind of monkey. And because the old world monkeys are catarrhines, and we are a branch of the great apes, we are also catarrhines… and monkeys.

But of course to describe us as monkeys does not really explain our most prominent features. That is an error equivalent to calling humans bilateria, or that a chicken is a therapod. It is true… but it is hardly the most accurate descriptive label that we can be given, as it confuses us with a large percentage of life on the planet. The most didactic word is Homo Sapiens, but that doesn’t change the fact that we are indeed a kind of monkey. And there’s no way to deny it.

The word fish is not really very good for cladistics. It groups too many different lineages together under a common umbrella and as a result doesn’t have very good diagnostic use. The kinds of animals which the first land-treading animals evolved from could be called fish colloquially, but they were not the same kinds of animals which we call fish now. They were stegacephalian tetrapods. Modern fish and our distant land-treading ancestors also share a common ancestor, but that creature was not a “fish”.

And the generational gap is so tremendously huge that you couldn’t really call them your grandparents. You don’t refer to the ancient egyptians who built the pyramids as your grandparents, though they almost certainly have contributed to your lineage (at the least you definitely share a common ancestor with them, and that includes the God Kings), and they were not that far back generationally.

ant wrote:Or how about this one:

"My great grandfather was a fish"

I'm not sure where you're going with this. But what Dawkins actually said is that your 185 millionth great grandfather was a fish (or if you're splitting hairs, some aquatic animal with gills). This is indeed what the evidence shows. Are you disputing it?

I assumed he was giving an example of how evolution is misunderstood. It was a great example of a top-down approach to understanding. Feeding on the words rather than the bottom-up understanding behind the words.

Interbane wrote:I assumed he was giving an example of how evolution is misunderstood. It was a great example of a top-down approach to understanding. Feeding on the words rather than the bottom-up understanding behind the words.

Thanks, I'm being thick as usual.

“Apes and humans share a distant common ancestor.”

It's hard for some people to swallow, but we're in the same taxonomic family (hominadae) as chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans. I think it's awesome myself.

Yep, a 2% genetic difference. A difference that allows for cultural evolution, thus allowing us to rule the planet. We are exponentialy more advanced than primitive feral man, by virtue of culture alone. It's fun to think about.

Ant has come to the end of the road again. The brick wall of confusion about logic and burden of proof.

Does ant believe EVERY claim about God(s) that he cannot disprove? Or does he reason like every other person in the world and not believe things for which there is no good evidence.

We could use ancient religious claims, but then ant will pretend to be offended. Do you believe in the virgin birth? The resurrection of Jesus? Do you believe Allah sent Muhammed as the last Prophet? Do you believe in Hindu reincarnation?

Expect this thread to be abandoned soon.

Well, remember that Ant has already said:

Ant:
It's really dumb of a disbeliever to state he believes a supernatural entity does not exist.

So while he might not believe in ANY god at all, he's already ... proven?... well asserted anyway, that it is really dumb to say anything if it isn't an affirmation of the existence of supernatural entities.

Which is why despite having attempted to bring this topic up with him on multiple occasions Ant has refused to comment on the real life existence of Odin the supernatural entity.

He HAS, however, gone on to make any number of additional nonsense comments and called others cowards for not first adopting his strawmen as their own positions, and then defending those fictitious ideas to the death.

For instance, Interbane really should be ashamed of himself for not believing consciousness is an illusion, or any number of other things Ant would LIKE him to believe so that Ant's nonsense ravings would appear to make more sense on these forums.

Evolution is wrong because the Founding Fathers opposed it!

Did you know the Founding Fathers had extensive writings on the problems with evolution and why creationism was right? You think evolution came in with Darwin? No, no, no. Everything Darwin argued had been established 500 years B.C. All Darwin did was take all the evolutionary thought that was out there and put it in one book to make it really easy to read. That wasn't original thinking by Darwin. It was there by 500 B.C. That's why the Founding Fathers had huge writings on evolution and creation.
- David Barton
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/b ... hed-500-bc

David Barton is a famous right wing purveyor of Constitutional Truthiness. So this may become a meme we'll encounter frequently. Let's hope so.