Evolution from monkeys

[Blind groper]

"Any of various long-tailed, medium-sized members of the order Primates, including the macaques,baboons, guenons, capuchins, marmosets, and tamarins and excluding the anthropoid apes and theprosimians."

Svartalf

That argument has validity only if the word 'monkey' has an exact scientific definition, which it does not. A monkey is anything that looks like a monkey with its inexact and somewhat vague dictionary definition. The definition at the top of this post is taken from The Free Dictionary, on line.

You will note that this definition is a slightly differently worded version of my earlier definition : "A monkey is any primate excluding lemurs, tarsiers, lorises and apes."

[Svartalf]

Actually, it doesn't... a catarrhine simian is indeed closer to a monkey than to a lemur or tarsier, and closer to a baboon or chimp than to a NWM, but it does not necessarily have what it takes to be called a monkey, it might look closer to a lemur, or be downright ape-ish and not monkeyish at all.

[Clinton Huxley]

A monkey was washed ashore somewhere barbarous, Northumberland or somewhere, in the 19th Century. The natives thought it was a Frenchman.

[Blind groper]

Svartalf

A catarrine simion is a monkey by definition. The common ancestor of old world monkeys and new world monkeys has to be some kind of monkey.

If I were to ask whether the common ancestor of two kinds of birds such as penguins and albatrosses was a bird, what would you say? Or is the common ancestor of two kinds of chelonians such as tortoises and turtles some kind of chelonian, you would have to say yes. Is the common ancestor of crocodiles and alligators a member of the crocodilians. Yes!

In exactly the same way, the common ancestor of two kinds of monkeys has to be a monkey.

If you asked if the common ancestor of monkeys and lemurs was a monkey, I would say no. But the common ancestor of two kinds of monkeys must be a monkey.

The only way to deny that would be if the word 'monkey' had an exact scientific devfinition that excluded the common ancestor, but it does not.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

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'.

What "correct definition"? If you do not accept it as a scientific term with a definite meaning and a definite circumscription of species, then it means ANYFUCKINGTHING you want it to mean - ie. it has NO correct definition. So ANY other interpretation is equally as valid as yours, including mine, and including the opinion that monkeys are specialised turnips with vestigial wings and a liking for soft furnishings.

If, however, you take the zoological definition, then I am right and you are bullshitting.

[mistermack]

The common ancestor of old world monkeys and new world monkeys has to be some kind of monkey.

I think you're confusing what something IS with what it's named.
If new world monkeys had happened to be named wonkeys instead, your logic goes out of the window.
What is the last common ancestor of old world monkeys and new world wonkeys? A monkey, or a wonkey?

In real life, old world monkeys are Catarrhini and new world monkeys are Platyrrhini, so that's the real question. What was the last common ancestor ?

What you're really talking about is old world Simiiformes and new world Simiiformes.
So, the last common ancestor would have been a Simiiform.

[pErvinalia]

He's basically making a non-rigorous semantic-games point for no real good purpose. Despite the last 14 pages, the original post still doesn't make much sense. It's a non-issue looking for relevance.

[JimC]

Have they typed the complete works of Shakespeare yet?

[mistermack]

Scientific classifications are now more often based on monophyletic groups, that is groups consisting of all the descendants of a common ancestor. The New World monkeys and the Old World monkeys are each monophyletic groups, but their combination is not, since it excludes hominoids (apes and humans). Thus the term "monkey" no longer refers to a recognized scientific taxon.

[JimC]

Modern apes and the 2 clades of monkeys evolved from "primates that probably more resembled monkeys than lemurs"

Enough said, really...

[pErvinalia]

The real question is, who gives a shit?

[JimC]

BG & XC...

[mistermack]

We just don't like being called monkeys.

Simiiformes is ok. We can live with that.

You need a southern accent to say it right.

Aaaaaaaaaaah ain't no monkeee, yalll.

[pErvinalia]

On a slightly different topic, are webbed toes and fingers on some people a throw-back to our fish days, or just a fuck up of genetics?

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Scientific classifications are now more often based on monophyletic groups, that is groups consisting of all the descendants of a common ancestor. The New World monkeys and the Old World monkeys are each monophyletic groups, but their combination is not, since it excludes hominoids (apes and humans). Thus the term "monkey" no longer refers to a recognized scientific taxon.

Presactly.

And therefore, Blind Groper can choose it to mean anything he likes, as precise, or as woolly, as he prefers, with absolute impunity from ever being wrong no matter how wrong he is. At least, that appears to be the main thrust of his argument.

Of course, once he chooses a definition, the rest of us have to accept that definition no matter how little effort he puts into actually describing it, no matter how many times he changes the source of that definition because the old one doesn't say what he thinks it says, no matter how many times he redefines that definition within his own bowels, and no matter how often he contradicts what he himself claimed in his previous post.

That, my friend, is DEMOCRACY, or possibly Semantic Diarrhoea. Either of which are equally valid.