[Taxacom] more science nonsense

[John Grehan]

Stephen - the assertion that a southern hemisphere origin "is suggested by
the new evidence" is indeed nonsense. The fossil can only suggest that a
clade was present at a particular place and time. Empirically it says
nothing about the origin of the taxon with respect to younger fossils
elsewhere. Its quite possible that the group had its origin from a
widespread ancestor that was in both the northern and southern hemisphere
and the (current) oldest fossil happens to be located in the south. It does
not matter that the fossil may represent the basal lineage as this may just
represent an initial vicariance. So dreaming up a local (southern) origin
is not science at all, just nonsense.

John Grehan

On Tue, Oct 1, 2019 at 11:21 PM Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>
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.
>