Chimps DON'T Belong In Human Genus

[Ken Kinman]

Dear All,
      I was rather shocked when I read John Grehan's post yesterday, and not
only because he could only find a handful of potential morphological
synapomorphies of human-chimp (and very problematic ones at that).  But also
because a full 8 character states shared with Pongo have been declared
convergences.  I'd be very interested to know what those 8 characters are
(could Gorilla perhaps be the odd man out???).
     If the molecular data turns out to be anywhere near as problematic as
this, the consensus view that chimp-human and gorilla-chimp-human are good
clades will need to be vigorously reexamined.  My skepticism toward a closer
orangutan-human relationship is frankly beginning to turn towards skepticism
of the gorilla-chimp-human clade which most of us have come to take for
granted.  I thank John Grehan for his persistence and open-mindedness on
this subject.
     This makes me even more determined to maintain Family Hominidae "sensu
stricto" evolving from a broad paraphyletic Pongidae.  But I am beginning to
wonder if the {{Hominidae}} outgroup marker will end up beside Pongo instead
of Pan.  The classification will remain the same, but the phylogenetic
coding would have to change (perhaps providing yet another potential example
of the stability and flexibility that can be achieved and successfully
co-exist with the use of cladisto-eclectic classifications).  We shall see.
In any case, today I am even more opposed to dumping Pan into Homo than I
was yesterday (seems to me that proposal has gone from dumb to dumber).
          ----- Cheers,
                    Ken Kinman

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