Evolution from monkeys

[Blind groper]

Xamonas

You are the one insisting that 'monkey' is a scientific term. In biology, common English words are not used that way. If there is a recognised taxa that can be called 'monkey' then it will have a proper latinised word to represent it, just like old world monkeys are called catarrhini. Perhaps you might care to tell me what scientific word is used to represent that taxa you call 'monkeys'.

In fact, you cannot do that, for the very simple reason that 'monkey' is not a scientific term. It is a common English word.

[JimC]

Xamonas

You are the one insisting that 'monkey' is a scientific term. In biology, common English words are not used that way. If there is a recognised taxa that can be called 'monkey' then it will have a proper latinised word to represent it, just like old world monkeys are called catarrhini. Perhaps you might care to tell me what scientific word is used to represent that taxa you call 'monkeys'.

In fact, you cannot do that, for the very simple reason that 'monkey' is not a scientific term. It is a common English word.

That may be true, but that does not mean it's use cannot be incorrect. An ignorant person may use it to describe a lemur, a tarsier, or a gibbon, and they would be wrong. It can be argued that it is only correctly be bestowed collectively on a combination of 2 extant separate clades, the Old and New World monkeys. Although not a scientific term, it is a word to designate a group of living things, rather than being a vague descriptor. It may well be that its meaning in the future becomes broader than currently accepted, but that is not the case as yet.

[Blind groper]

Jim

If you were to pick a 12 year old at random, and ask him/her to describe a monkey, that kid would probably do a good job. Not able to define it, perhaps, but mostly able to pick which animals are monkeys and which are not from pictures.

Now, if you were to draw a picture of a root stock primate, of the kind that led to both old world and new world monkeys, that 12 year old would immediately, and without hesitation identify that picture as being a monkey. So would I.

To suggest that apes did not evolve from monkeys because of some reservation about naming is bloody ridiculous. The taxa named simiiformes is a taxa of monkeys, by any reasonable definition. That includes the early ones that later evolved into new world and old world monkeys.

Since the word 'monkey' is not a scientific term, there is no reason to deny that the simiiformes before old world and new world monkey division were, by any definition found in an English dictionary, monkeys.

I believe that we are seeing an emotion based argument here. Xamonas decided some time ago that humans did not evolve from monkeys and now has an entrenched position, regardless of the obvious fact that monkeys preceded apes.

[Svartalf]

If we take the true meaning of the word 'monkey', which is standard English, not zoological, then all hairy primates who are not apes, lemurs, tarsiers, or lorises, and who climb trees are monkeys. That includes the ancestors of old world and new world monkeys.

True by whose definition? ex recto again, I would imagine.

Should we exclude non-arboreal monkeys from the group now? What should we call them instead? Gropers, perhaps?

Nope, groupers are fish

[pErvinalia]

No, Svarty, they're slime molds!!

[Svartalf]

Phylogenetically or semantically?

[Xamonas Chegwé]

If you were to pick a 12 year old at random, and ask him/her to describe a monkey, that kid would probably do a good job. Not able to define it, perhaps, but mostly able to pick which animals are monkeys and which are not from pictures.

So your argument is based on the opinions of 12 year olds? That surprises me not at all.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Since the word 'monkey' is not a scientific term, there is no reason to deny that the simiiformes before old world and new world monkey division were, by any definition found in an English dictionary, monkeys.

Since the word "monkey" is not a scientific term, you can define it as any old bollocks that you want. Is that your point? Because when you were talking about pandas, you used the fact that "panda" was not a scientific term to justify the Giant and Red Pandas NOT being related!

I believe that we are seeing an emotion based argument here. Xamonas decided some time ago that humans did not evolve from monkeys and now has an entrenched position, regardless of the obvious fact that monkeys preceded apes.

Oh, we are very definitely seeing that. But from which side?

Let me repeat. My position has never changed from the first post in this thread. Yours has wriggled and squirmed like an epileptic fish as you try every semantic trick and logical fallacy in the book to "prove" your inane position is as valid as that of the zoological community. You have now resorted to an ad hominum attack on my "emotionality". I expect you to bring up Hitler in 5... 4... 3...

[pErvinalia]

Hitler was a fan of genetics.

[Svartalf]

Eugenics more than actual genetics, he believed in silly theories

[pErvinalia]

sounds a bit like BG... (the silly theory, bit).

[Svartalf]

I don't know what BG means

[Xamonas Chegwé]

I don't know what BG means

Blind Groper. And I don't think he knows what he means half of the time either.

[Blind groper]

Yet for all that, I am correct.

Xamonas has used an approach that is simply incorrect. The word 'monkey' is not a scientific term, and should not be used as if it were.

Once we realise that it is a common English word, we can use it in that sense. And the ancestors of old world monkeys, and of apes, were monkeys in any correct definition of the word 'monkey'.

Oh, and Xamonas.
Your consistency is irrelevant. When you are wrong, the fact that your error is consistent does not make it right.

[Svartalf]

You're still incorrect... our ancestor, for all of having been a catarrhine, may have differenciated from other simians before they evolved into what is now known as monkeys and would not have been categorized as one.