[Taxacom] more science nonsense

[Stephen Thorpe]

 Michael,Surely that depends on geological age of the fossils? If the earliest known fossil is also the most primitive known taxon of the group, then that is evidence that the location of the fossil is near the location of origin for the group*. Your argument would only apply if someone tried to infer that the location of the most primitive, but not oldest, known taxon was the location of origin. As I said, nothing is 100% certain, merely "suggestive" (such is the nature of science).Stephen*It would be ad hoc to postulate, in this case, that the group had its origin in the Northern Hemisphere, but that this taxon then dispersed to the Southern Hemisphere, where it just happened to be found as a fossil. It is possible, but not suggested or supported by the available evidence.    On Wednesday, 2 October 2019, 04:50:55 am UTC, Michael Heads <m.j.heads at gmail.com> wrote:  
 
 Why would the location of the most primitive species indicate the centre of origin? Darwin thought that the most advanced species occupied the centre of origin (and had pushed out the more primitive, inferior species to remote areas).
On Wed, Oct 2, 2019 at 4:21 PM Stephen Thorpe via Taxacom <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> wrote:

 Hold on there one minute John!On the scale of "science nonsense", this might not even qualify! The key word is "suggests". The fossil does demonstrate that the oldest and most primitive *known* member of the group is from the Southern Hemisphere, so that it *evidence* that the group evolved there. It is the simplest explanation of the known facts, that's all. Otherwise, you have to posit the existence of unknown like fossils in the Northern Hemisphere, for which there is currently no evidence, and consider it chance that the first such fossil just happened to be found in the Southern Hemisphere. Sure, that it *possible*, but nobody seems to be saying that a Southern Hemisphere origin it is 100% certain, just that it is suggested by the new evidence.Stephen
    On Wednesday, 2 October 2019, 03:04:40 am UTC, John Grehan via Taxacom <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> wrote:  

 Never ceases to amaze me. In a recent paper the following assertion:

"All previously known Paleocene records of pelagornithids stem from the
Northern Hemisphere, but as the oldest and phylogenetically most basal
representative,
Protodontopteryx suggests that these birds actually evolved in the Southern
Hemisphere."

Apart from the  center of origin illusion, there never has been any
empirical demonstration that the location of the oldest fossil corresponds
to the oldest occupied area for a taxon. But still they keep saying it as
if it were real.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335873378_Oldest_smallest_and_phylogenetically_most_basal_pelagornithid_from_the_early_Paleocene_of_New_Zealand_sheds_light_on_the_evolutionary_history_of_the_largest_flying_birds


John Grehan
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Nurturing nuance while assaulting ambiguity for 32 some years, 1987-2019.

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-- 
Dunedin, New Zealand. Â My books:

Biogeography and evolution in New Zealand. Taylor and Francis/CRC, Boca Raton FL. 2017.  https://www.routledge.com/Biogeography-and-Evolution-in-New-Zealand/Heads/p/book/9781498751872




Biogeography of Australasia:  A molecular analysis. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 2014. www.cambridge.org/9781107041028 




Molecular panbiogeography of the tropics. University of California Press, Berkeley. 2012. www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn—80520271968




Panbiogeography:Tracking the history of life. Oxford University Press, New York. 1999. (With R. Craw and J. Grehan). http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=Bm0_QQ3Z6GUC

              




 




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