[Taxacom] more science nonsense

[John Grehan]

Stephen, There is nothing in science to support the contention that " If
the oldest and most primitive member of a group is discovered as a fossil
in the S Hemisphere, then that evidence suggests a S Hemisphere origin for
the group." There is just no basis for that. You are incorrect to say that "
 such an origin is suggested by the available evidence." It is not. The
location of the oldest and most primitive fossil member of a group is only
evidence of the oldest (known) and most primitive (known) fossil member
being at a particular location at a particular geological date.

John Grehan

On Wed, Oct 2, 2019 at 3:55 PM Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>
wrote:

> John,
> I'd like to know what other Taxacomers think about this, as it is crucial
> to the proper understanding of science itself. You seem to be trying to
> undermine scientific inferences on the basis that there are other possible
> explanations of the same facts. That might be a sensible approach to
> certain kinds of cases, but not ones of this kind, I suggest. You seem to
> be conflating certainty with empirical support (for a hypothesis). Science
> isn't about determining the truth, it is about being led by evidence. If
> the oldest and most primitive member of a group is discovered as a fossil
> in the S Hemisphere, then that evidence suggests a S Hemisphere origin for
> the group. Sure, there are other, more convoluted possibilities which could
> be wheeled in ad hoc, but that's not science! The authors are not claiming
> any certainty of a S Hemisphere origin for the group, merely that such an
> origin is suggested by the available evidence. I see no particular problem
> with this, except perhaps the overly heavy weight that science puts on
> working with mere inconclusive suggestions from empirical evidence. For
> applied science, at the end of the day, somethinbg either works or it
> doesn't, but, for pure science, the inconclusive suggestions just lead to
> inconclusive theories with which scientists occupy their time and
> resources, but for what???
> Stephen
>
> On Wednesday, 2 October 2019, 02:11:13 pm UTC, John Grehan <
> calabar.john at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> 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.
>
>