Evolution from monkeys

[Animavore]

By the same logic: Most of our ancestors are extinct species. Therefore we are an extinct species. Scumple will be pleased.

No. That makes no sense what-so-ever and the logic is not the same. What is any creature but the accumlation of every adaptation that came before it stretching back to single-celled organisms?
Saying that our ancestors are extinct therefore we are exitinct is like saying my granddad is dead therefore I'm dead.

Ok then.

We have ancestors that were gill-bearing aquatic craniate animals that lacked limbs with digits. Does that mean that we have gills and lack digits? If not, how can we be fish, seeing as that is the definition of a fish?

Why are you using a self-serving defintion of fish which looks at the differences and ignores everything that's the same? We're fish that lost its gills. Big deal. There are cave-dwelling lizards who have lost their eyes. Have they stopped being lizards? Birds have wings where dinosaurs did not and lost teeth to boot. Have they stopped being dinosaurs?

You're trying to create a divding line between our fish ancestors and ourselves which simply doesn't exist.

No. The line exists. It is only ever hard to define in the borderline cases. We are not a borderline case. We are not fish by ANY definition of fish. We have not merely lost the gills, we have lost everything that makes something a fish.

No we haven't lost everything that makes us a fish. We retain many characteristics. Bi-lateral symmetry, laryngeal nerve, eyes evolved for water... why am I even saying this you should know all this.
The line does not and cannot exist because there can't be a single moment where you have fish on one side and amphibans on the other.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

No we haven't lost everything that makes us a fish. We retain many characteristics. Bi-lateral symmetry, laryngeal nerve, eyes evolved for water... why am I even saying this you should know all this.
The line does not and cannot exist because there can't be a single moment where you have fish on one side and amphibans on the other.

That doesn't mean you can't have a line - it's just wibble. There is no definite point where yellow ends and green begins but some things are clearly one or the other. A fuzzy boundary does not mean you cannot be on one side or the other, only that you cannot be sure of borderline cases. And, as I already stated, we are not a borderline case. If your logic is allowed to stand, then there is no clear boundary between ANY species and any other, so let's call everything cauliflowers and have done with it.

[pErvinalia]

By the same logic: Most of our ancestors are extinct species. Therefore we are an extinct species. Scumple will be pleased.

No. That makes no sense what-so-ever and the logic is not the same. What is any creature but the accumlation of every adaptation that came before it stretching back to single-celled organisms?
Saying that our ancestors are extinct therefore we are exitinct is like saying my granddad is dead therefore I'm dead.

Ok then.

We have ancestors that were gill-bearing aquatic craniate animals that lacked limbs with digits. Does that mean that we have gills and lack digits? If not, how can we be fish, seeing as that is the definition of a fish?

Why are you using a self-serving defintion of fish which looks at the differences and ignores everything that's the same? We're fish that lost its gills. Big deal. There are cave-dwelling lizards who have lost their eyes. Have they stopped being lizards? Birds have wings where dinosaurs did not and lost teeth to boot. Have they stopped being dinosaurs?

You're trying to create a divding line between our fish ancestors and ourselves which simply doesn't exist.

Well, cladistically it does exist.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Another example, Ani. There is a continuous gradation between a pint of water and a pint of beer. Does this mean that the two terms are interchangeable? Just for future reference the next time you turn up to a meet and it's my round...

[Animavore]

Another example, Ani. There is a continuous gradation between a pint of water and a pint of beer. Does this mean that the two terms are interchangeable? Just for future reference the next time you turn up to a meet and it's my round...

There is no continuous line between water and beer because things are added to the water. It doesn't evolve. It's not like the water molecules change into beer over time.

But even if that were the case, the beer's ancestry would still be evident in water and it would still retain the characteristics of water. The water would never be beer the way fish today have never been reptiles, but the beer would still be water and everything else that came between in and the beer the way humans are still apes, apes are still monkeys and monkeys and so forth.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Maybe beer is water in Ireland, mate - especially Smithwick's. Over here, we prefer something a tad tastier.

[pErvinalia]

The analogy game is starting to get a bit silly.

[Animavore]

It's interesting seeing the old guard resisting new standards for myself (that humans are monkeys is already being taught in some schools) confirming the old addage that scientific paradigms don't shift over night, they happen one funeral at a time. Makes me wonder, what new ideas will the young uns be coming up with when I'm older that I'll find myself resisting?

[pErvinalia]

You're still not accepting that u r playing a semantic game

[Xamonas Chegwé]

You're still not accepting that u r playing a semantic game

Yep. He be trollin'.

[pErvinalia]

He's not trolling. He just using a more semantic rather than scientific definition. In a sense all mammals are fish, as we are what fish became. But that's so inexact as to be somewhat scientifically useless.

[mistermack]

It's interesting seeing the old guard resisting new standards for myself (that humans are monkeys is already being taught in some schools) confirming the old addage that scientific paradigms don't shift over night, they happen one funeral at a time. Makes me wonder, what new ideas will the young uns be coming up with when I'm older that I'll find myself resisting?

I think they are confusing what humans ARE with what they should be called.
There should be no confusion about what we are. There is just a lot of hot air about what we should be called. Which is really about as important as how you spell the sound a fart makes.

It only really matters to people who know little or nothing about human evolution, because they they tend to take the words at face-value. And for their benefit, I recommend calling things exactly what they actually are. With no room for confusion.
In other words, the animals that gave rise to humans, modern apes and modern monkeys shouldn't be called monkeys because it's confusing and illogical.

[Blind groper]

"1.a small to medium-sized primate that typically has a long tail, most kinds of which live in trees in tropical countries."

Humans are not fish. No matter what definition you use, humans are not fish.

However, the definition of monkey is something else. Xamonas is trying to use it in a way that it was never intended to be used. Let me quote the definition of 'monkey' as taken from a dictionary. Read it at the top of this page.

The word 'monkey' is one in common useage, and is not a primatology taxonomic classification. The correct use of the word is according to that definition. By that definition, the animals apes evolved from were monkeys. On the other hand, apes are not monkeys, because the definition contains the description of a tail.

[pErvinalia]

It's interesting seeing the old guard resisting new standards for myself (that humans are monkeys is already being taught in some schools) confirming the old addage that scientific paradigms don't shift over night, they happen one funeral at a time. Makes me wonder, what new ideas will the young uns be coming up with when I'm older that I'll find myself resisting?

I think they are confusing what humans ARE with what they should be called.
There should be no confusion about what we are. There is just a lot of hot air about what we should be called. Which is really about as important as how you spell the sound a fart makes.

It only really matters to people who know little or nothing about human evolution, because they they tend to take the words at face-value.

What are u pretending to be an expert about now?? What XC has described is the cladistic (= scientific) definition. And no, scientific analysis to determine gene frequencies and heritage and adaptive radiation etc., aren't things that matter to people who "know little or nothing about human evolution".

[Animavore]

"1.a small to medium-sized primate that typically has a long tail, most kinds of which live in trees in tropical countries."

Humans are not fish. No matter what definition you use, humans are not fish.

However, the definition of monkey is something else. Xamonas is trying to use it in a way that it was never intended to be used. Let me quote the definition of 'monkey' as taken from a dictionary. Read it at the top of this page.

The word 'monkey' is one in common useage, and is not a primatology taxonomic classification. The correct use of the word is according to that definition. By that definition, the animals apes evolved from were monkeys. On the other hand, apes are not monkeys, because the definition contains the description of a tail.

Barbary apes are tailess monkeys. Monkeys are not defined by their tails.