[Taxacom] more science nonsense

Wed Oct 2 19:27:29 CDT 2019

 Jason said: "Its study only makes sense if you accept that the simplest explanation is the likeliest"
I'm not sure that this is a necessary assumption? After all, how much, if anything, do we really know about likelihoods? Probably (no pun intended!) not much.
Maybe we should view pure science as an approach whereby we run with simplest explanations, not because we think that they are any more or less likely, but just because it is a rule of "the game"? Without it, we can't get anywhere, because there are always alternative possibilities with varying degrees of complexity.
This does however raise the question as to whether a lot of this stuff is actually worth bothering with at all. Speaking for myself, I'm much happier to document biodiversity (Recent and fossil) rather than worry about inferring inherently inconclusive theories about evolutionary history. Some people think of the latter as science and the former as "stamp collecting", but I consider the latter to be little more than "pissing in the wind", to use a somewhat vulgar expression!
Stephen

    On Thursday, 3 October 2019, 12:11:20 am UTC, JF Mate via Taxacom <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> wrote:  

 I think this is going to lead nowhere. I am ignorant of "bird"
systematics but after a quick check of the article´s phylogeny and the
distribution of fossils, it looks like the area of origin is still
confused. Having said that the authors said it was suggestive (and I
agree) and as such they are making an educated guess based on the fact
that the most primitive known taxon is SH, and most derived taxa are
also SH. Maybe if they threw into the phylogeny the known species of
Pelagornis and Dasornis then more could be said. (so a draw IMO)

However the statement "... there never has been any empirical
demonstration that the location of the oldest fossil corresponds
to the oldest occupied area for a taxon." is more telling.
Evolutionary history is reconstructive and as such there is loss of
information. Its study only makes sense if you accept that the
simplest explanation is the likeliest, which in the case of fossils
means that the area of distribution of the taxon must coincide with
that of the fossil, and must reflect the inferred biology and
"typical" distribution of similar taxa. Evolutionary sciences are
often accused of being slightly about "just so stories" and there is
some truth to that because there is an awful lot of gaps to fill. On
the other hand it is dangerous to use the gaps as evidence.

In the end this boils down to your perspective on cladistic
biogeography, and we all know where the lines in the sand lie.

J

On Thu, 3 Oct 2019 at 05:55, Stephen Thorpe via Taxacom
<taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> 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
> _______________________________________________
> Taxacom Mailing List
>
> Send Taxacom mailing list submissions to: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> For list information; to subscribe or unsubscribe, visit: http://mailman.nhm.ku.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/taxacom
> You can reach the person managing the list at: taxacom-owner at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> The Taxacom email archive back to 1992 can be searched at: http://taxacom.markmail.org
>
> Nurturing nuance while assaulting ambiguity for 32 some years, 1987-2019.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Taxacom Mailing List
>
> Send Taxacom mailing list submissions to: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> For list information; to subscribe or unsubscribe, visit: http://mailman.nhm.ku.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/taxacom
> You can reach the person managing the list at: taxacom-owner at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> The Taxacom email archive back to 1992 can be searched at: http://taxacom.markmail.org
>
> Nurturing nuance while assaulting ambiguity for 32 some years, 1987-2019.
_______________________________________________
Taxacom Mailing List

Send Taxacom mailing list submissions to: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
For list information; to subscribe or unsubscribe, visit: http://mailman.nhm.ku.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/taxacom
You can reach the person managing the list at: taxacom-owner at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
The Taxacom email archive back to 1992 can be searched at: http://taxacom.markmail.org

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