Evolution from monkeys

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Why do you keep referring to a general language dictionary in relation to scientific concepts?

[Tyrannical]

Xamonas

You don't give up, do you? You insist on extracting every last gram of bullshit.

Actually, my argument has been totally consistent throughout this thread. There is a zoological definition of "monkey" and there are others (such as the one in your dictionary) which I deem less valid in the context of evolution.

It is your arguments that have clutched at one straw after another. Your citing of the Collins Dictionary here being yet another case in point.

I have made my case again and again and have never had to change my tack. You have played semantic troll-games as you always do.

Ding Ding Ding Ding we have a winner!

Took enough posts for someone to finally mention that words often have multiple definitions, and that disciplines point to one specific definition of a word that has multiple definitions.

[rainbow]

Alcohol being, after all, a complex sugar...

Define complexity.

[Svartalf]

As opposed to simple sugars like saccharose or fructose

[Animavore]

"Monkey" is not the name of a clade. It is the name for the union of two, closely related but evolutionarily separate clades. It would make FAR more sense for it to refer to Simiiformes as a whole, including the apes. However, it does not. Ergo :apes and humans did not descend from monkeys. Not until the zoological definition is rationalised.

Simiformes does refer to the apes as well as Old and New World monkeys.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simian

The simians (infraorder Simiiformes, Anthropoidea) are the "higher primates" familiar to most people: the Old World monkeys and apes, including humans, (together being the catarrhines), and the New World monkeys or platyrrhines.

[Animavore]

Also, it sounds a bit weird to me to say that apes haven't evolved from monkeys until someone else says they do. The ancestor of apes, New World Monkeys and Old World Monkeys was itself a monkey as confirmed by the fossil record. If apes didn't evolve from monkeys then what did they evolve from? Grapes?

[rainbow]

As opposed to simple sugars like saccharose or fructose

I'm not convinced.

[Clinton Huxley]

Also, it sounds a bit weird to me to say that apes haven't evolved from monkeys until someone else says they do. The ancestor of apes, New World Monkeys and Old World Monkeys was itself a monkey as confirmed by the fossil record. If apes didn't evolve from monkeys then what did they evolve from? Grapes?

Indeed, grapes. The viniiformes, as I recall.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

"Monkey" is not the name of a clade. It is the name for the union of two, closely related but evolutionarily separate clades. It would make FAR more sense for it to refer to Simiiformes as a whole, including the apes. However, it does not. Ergo :apes and humans did not descend from monkeys. Not until the zoological definition is rationalised.

Simiformes does refer to the apes as well as Old and New World monkeys.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simian

The simians (infraorder Simiiformes, Anthropoidea) are the "higher primates" familiar to most people: the Old World monkeys and apes, including humans, (together being the catarrhines), and the New World monkeys or platyrrhines.

I never said that Simiiformes doesn't include to apes. It does AND I said so in the line you quoted! Do read the posts you comment on, Ani!

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Also, it sounds a bit weird to me to say that apes haven't evolved from monkeys until someone else says they do. The ancestor of apes, New World Monkeys and Old World Monkeys was itself a monkey as confirmed by the fossil record. If apes didn't evolve from monkeys then what did they evolve from? Grapes?

NO!

The common ancestor of these species was not a monkey by definition. That it possessed all of the features common to all monkeys, I have no doubt. But the fact remains that, due to the precise definition of the word monkey in zoology, it is wrong to call it one with any scientific rigour.

FFS. The definition is a bullshit distinction contrived to elevate apes to a non-monkey, superior status, but it IS the definition in current zoological usage. What part of this can't you understand?

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Alcohol being, after all, a complex sugar...

Define complexity.

Alcohols are a group of organic molecules defined as a saturated hydrocarbon with an hydroxyl functional group.

Sugar is the loose term for a group of soluble carbohydrates with the general formula CnH2nOn, where n is an integer between 3 and 7.

If anything, alcohols, particularly ethanol, are far less complex than sugars.

[Animavore]

Also, it sounds a bit weird to me to say that apes haven't evolved from monkeys until someone else says they do. The ancestor of apes, New World Monkeys and Old World Monkeys was itself a monkey as confirmed by the fossil record. If apes didn't evolve from monkeys then what did they evolve from? Grapes?

NO!

The common ancestor of these species was not a monkey by definition. That it possessed all of the features common to all monkeys, I have no doubt. But the fact remains that, due to the precise definition of the word monkey in zoology, it is wrong to call it one with any scientific rigour.

How can something which has all the features of a monkey not be a monkey by defintion? That make no sense.

FFS. The definition is a bullshit distinction contrived to elevate apes to a non-monkey, superior status, but it IS the definition in current zoological usage. What part of this can't you understand?

I understand it perfectly. Which is why I reject such a bullshit definition and favour the one proposed by the new standard.
The difference is, I'm not waiting for everyone else to catch up to the new standard first before deciding that that is the one I'm going with. The argument is sound as far as I'm concerned and I've no need to wait until the old guard die out. I mean, earlier in the thread you actually objected that this standard is used in America and not used in Britain yet (as far as you knew)! This is as silly as objections get. If the whole world was using the new standard and Britain wasn't would you still refuse it? At which point do you decide which definition is the best one to use?

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Also, it sounds a bit weird to me to say that apes haven't evolved from monkeys until someone else says they do. The ancestor of apes, New World Monkeys and Old World Monkeys was itself a monkey as confirmed by the fossil record. If apes didn't evolve from monkeys then what did they evolve from? Grapes?

NO!

The common ancestor of these species was not a monkey by definition. That it possessed all of the features common to all monkeys, I have no doubt. But the fact remains that, due to the precise definition of the word monkey in zoology, it is wrong to call it one with any scientific rigour.

How can something which has all the features of a monkey not be a monkey by defintion? That make no sense.

FFS. The definition is a bullshit distinction contrived to elevate apes to a non-monkey, superior status, but it IS the definition in current zoological usage. What part of this can't you understand?

I understand it perfectly. Which is why I reject such a bullshit definition and favour the one proposed by the new standard.
The difference is, I'm not waiting for everyone else to catch up to the new standard first before deciding that that is the one I'm going with. The argument is sound as far as I'm concerned and I've no need to wait until the old guard die out. I mean, earlier in the thread you actually objected that this standard is used in America and not used in Britain yet (as far as you knew)! This is as silly as objections get. If the whole world was using the new standard and Britain wasn't would you still refuse it? At which point do you decide which definition is the best one to use?

There is no "new standard", certainly not one adopted throughout the USA as you imply, just one guy's youtube post and some unsubstantiated claims about it gaining ground in US schools (but not Texas.) But you choose that above real science because ex recto. Feel free to pick and choose which science you like and fill in the bits you don't like with "what makes more sense to you", if that makes you happy. Just don't waste any more of my time trying to claim that that makes you somehow more right than real scientists.

[Animavore]

Also, it sounds a bit weird to me to say that apes haven't evolved from monkeys until someone else says they do. The ancestor of apes, New World Monkeys and Old World Monkeys was itself a monkey as confirmed by the fossil record. If apes didn't evolve from monkeys then what did they evolve from? Grapes?

NO!

The common ancestor of these species was not a monkey by definition. That it possessed all of the features common to all monkeys, I have no doubt. But the fact remains that, due to the precise definition of the word monkey in zoology, it is wrong to call it one with any scientific rigour.

How can something which has all the features of a monkey not be a monkey by defintion? That make no sense.

FFS. The definition is a bullshit distinction contrived to elevate apes to a non-monkey, superior status, but it IS the definition in current zoological usage. What part of this can't you understand?

I understand it perfectly. Which is why I reject such a bullshit definition and favour the one proposed by the new standard.
The difference is, I'm not waiting for everyone else to catch up to the new standard first before deciding that that is the one I'm going with. The argument is sound as far as I'm concerned and I've no need to wait until the old guard die out. I mean, earlier in the thread you actually objected that this standard is used in America and not used in Britain yet (as far as you knew)! This is as silly as objections get. If the whole world was using the new standard and Britain wasn't would you still refuse it? At which point do you decide which definition is the best one to use?

There is no "new standard", certainly not one adopted throughout the USA as you imply, just one guy's youtube post and some unsubstantiated claims about it gaining ground in US schools (but not Texas.) But you choose that above real science because ex recto. Feel free to pick and choose which science you like and fill in the bits you don't like with "what makes more sense to you", if that makes you happy. Just don't waste any more of my time trying to claim that that makes you somehow more right than real scientists.

It's not because "ex recto". It's because I find the argument sound.
I'm not claiming to be "more right" than anyone. No need to get snippy with me because I favour one emerging veiw over the old one.

[tattuchu]

This fred is too serious. Time for Elvis Costello interlude: