Re: Savanna apes

Another savanna believer who produces a lot of irrelevant blabla Sigh.




Op 14-01-2008 00:01, in artikel
5521c897-3e3c-4a82-b78d-25a53db62d77@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, rmacfarl
<rmacfarl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> schreef:

On Jan 13, 8:07 am, spiznet <m...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Jan 12, 3:08 am, Marc Verhaegen <m_verhae...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Some stupid savanna believer wrote:

Marc is confused on this even more than most things.
He has stated in the past that everything since the LCA Homo/Pan
(really Homo/Apith) on our side is Homo, so this leaves us with 7-5mya
??
My little boy, "H/apith" does not exist.
BTW, H & P split 6-4 Ma.
OK, H/P split 6 mya. But what was the split, since in your view, Apith
evolves into Pan?

??
Don't be ridiculous.
Why don't you inform a little
bit??http://users.ugent.be/~mvaneech/Fil/Verhaegen_Human_Evolution.html
Sigh.

Is this what I am supposed to find in this morass:
Conclusion
A review of the paleo-anthropological literature reveals no data that
exclude the possibility that both gorillas and chimpanzees could have
had australopith ancestors. Bipedalism is generally considered to be
the shared feature that links australopithecines with humans, and
there is no doubt that at least some of the australopith species were
partial bipeds. But it has never been proven that the African apes'
unique locomotion (plantigrade knuckle-walking) could not have evolved
from some kind of ("short"-legged) bipedalism. In fact, insofar as the
fragmentary fossil material and the incomplete comparisons with extant
apes allow, ontogenetic and morphological evidence tends to favour the
hypothesis that the last common ancestor of Homo and Pan 8-4 Myr BP
was a partially bipedal, gracile australopith with chiefly a mosaic of
human and chimpanzee (esp. bonobo) features: low sexual dimorphism,
minimal prognathism, slightly enlarged canines, non-protruding nasal
skeleton, smooth ectocranium without crests, "small" brain with ape-
like sulcal pattern, relatively non-flexed basicranium, intermediate
position of foramen magnum, "short" forelimbs without knuckle-walking
features, low ilia, (very) long femoral necks, "short" legs, (very)
valgus knees, full plantigrady, longer and not very abductable
halluces.

This is exactly what I have been saying (that you were saying, which
you deny): that the H/P split LCA was actually an Apith. You admit it
here. It is too bad that it only took 3 months of namecalling for you
to finally do this.

Unfortunately, this is not the end of your problems. You posit an
8-4mya imaginary Apith that existed before A.Anamemsis, which there is
no record of. You don't have any mechanism to show why, if the african
apes come from Apith that the LCA of Gorilla would be earlier than
Pan. PLUS, you STILL have no fossil record of the Homo branch after
the LCA all the way up to H.erectus in 2mya.

I miss your case, and your points that you are attempting to make
here.
-spiznet

Some other prescient views on relationships between Pan, Gorilla,
Australopithecus and Homo, and especially on Marc's distorted views of
them:

Myt little boy, hananburg couldn't even answer why more robust apiths
(aethiopicus) appear much earlier in the fossils recoerd than les srobusts
ones (robustus). This alone contradicts robust monophyly & makes the
attempts to reconstruct hominid trees below irrealistic.

"
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology.paleo
From: Gerrit Hanenburg <G.Hanenb...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2007 19:34:00 +0200
Subject: Re: Gorilla-like anatomy on Australopithecus afarensis
mandibles suggests Au. afarensis link to robust australopiths

...

Of couse, one character doesn't mean much. It's only in the context
of
an extensive data set that the significance of such a character
becomes obvious.
But to suggest that Au. afarensis is closer related to the robust
australopithecines

Ah?
Who suggested that??
Names!

is quite different from the suggestion that the
australopithecines are ancestors of the African apes.
It needs to be mentioned that the group of robust australopithecines
is the best supported clade in hominid phylogeny, with 100% support
in
a recent cladistic analysis by Strait and Grine (2004).
http://web.inter.nl.net/users/G.Hanenburg/Hominoid_phylogeny.jpg
This clade is more closely related to Homo than to any of the African
apes.
The suggestion that Au. afarensis is more closely related to the
robust clade was made previously by Kimbel et al. (1988), shortly
after the discovery of the black skull (KNM-WT 17000), but so far has
not been substantiated by derived morphology.
Of course it's quite possible that this newly found character will
shift the position of Au. afarensis a few nodes up the tree close to
the base of the robust clade, but given that the character is not
well
known in most other early hominids, this remains to be seen.
This character may be related to heavy mastication and as such likely
subject to convergence.

Strait, D. S. & Grine, F. E. (2004). Inferring hominoid and hominid
phylogeny using craniodental characters: the role of fossil taxa.
Journal of Human Evolution 47: 399-452.


Kimbel, W.H. et al. (1988). Implications of KNM-WT 17000 for the
Evolution of "Robust" Australopithecus. pp. 259-268 in Grine, F.E.
(ed.). Evolutionary History of the "Robust" Australopithecines.
Aldine
de Gruyter, New York.


Gerrit
"

"
j...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Jason Eshleman) - Thurs, May 13 2004 4:30 am
Subject: Re: www.aquaticape.org critique
"
...
A.(P.) robustus to G.gorilla

Ah??
Who suggested that??
Names!

is not merely a controversial hypothesis,
but one that such enormous counter evidence as to favor its outright
rejection. A.robustus shares with genus Homo many derived
characteristics. It shares with us a reduction or elmination in the
I2-P3 diastema, incisiform canines, greatly reduced aveolar
prognathism, a more pronounced flexion of the cranial base, shortened
cranial base, deeper TMJ facet, more acute angle of the petrosal
relative to the coronal plane. These are all characteristics where
Gorilla resembles the primitive catarrhine condition and where humans
are very clearly derived. For a robust to be ancestral to Gorilla
would require reversals in all of these traits. Further, for a robust
a'pith to be ancestral to Gorilla would also require reversal of the
megadontia. Gorillas do not show this similar reduction of anterior
dentition relative to the molars. The very, very limited similarities
between the skull of a gorilla and a robust are all either primitive
conditions for hominoidea (if not for catarrhines) or those of very
limited phylogenetic value, such as a saggital crest, a feature that
routinely appears with the increase in mandibular musculature. This
feature has appeared in too many lineages to be taken as a strong
synapomorphy.

...

Lucy's pelvis shares derived characteristics with Homo relative to the
primitive primate condition. This condition is not seen in Gorilla or
Pan, who have a pelvis much more in line with the primitive
morphology. This suggests, cladisticially, that we share a more
recent common ancestor with the apiths than we do with the extant
apes. Since the cranial-dental traits echo this, and there are not
many (any?) synapomorphies between apiths and the extant apes not also
shared with Homo, to favor Algis's interpretation at the expense of an
((Apith-Homo)extant ape) clade is to reject at best all the evidence,
at worst, to reject the very concept of cladistic analysis and the
comparative method in biology.
"

jae@xxxxxxxxxxx Jan 9, 2005 11:45 am Newsgroups:
sci.anthropology.paleo
"
...
Hominin generally refers to the tribe (above genus, below family and
subfamily) "Hominini" and includes genus Homo and other bipedal
hominoids thought to be members of a clade to the exclusion of the
African great apes. The term itself isn't meaningful though. What's
meaningful is the relationships.

Cladistics classifies only according to shared-derived
characteristics. Australopithecines share derived traits not seen in
extant apes and thus appear more closely related (i.e. share a more
recent common ancestor) to genus Homo than they are to Pan or Gorilla.
These traits include reduction of the canines, reduction of the I^2-C
diastema, incisiformation of the canines IN ADDITION to the shared
characteristics of the pelvis and hindlimbs. In all cases, it's clear
that extant apes share traits much more like the ancestral condition
as assessed by comparisons within the primates and comparisons to
Miocene fossil apes, all of whom share the greater canine length,
larger diastema, no incisiformation of the canines and none of whom
show the characteristics of a biped. The similarities
Australopithecines share with apes all appear to be sympleisiomorphies
or primitive characteristics (e.g. pronounced prognathism, low
basicranial flexion) which are unreliable traits of absolutely no use
in assessing cladistic relationships. By any realistic cladistic
measure, australopithecines and Homo belong in a clade to the
exclusion of Pan and Gorilla.
"

JAE Jul 31, 2005 11:32 am Newsgroups: sci.anthropology.paleo
"
...
I've very skeptical about most molecular clock estimates in general
(with or without hybridization), but a Pan-Homo split that recent has
some Himalayian-sized obstacles against it interms of character
parsimony in the fossil record. The fossil record provides some
rather compelling reason to set an earlier minimum calibration point,
earlier than 3.5 million years ago when we already see much more human-
like forms. Even ignoring those traits associated with bipedalism
(and I don't think we should ignore these), there was clearly many
forms rather derived away from those characteristics where Pan retains
primitive features in the teeth and skull. Either there were massive
wholescale reversals completely obliterating any traces of change in
the line leading to Pan OR all of the fossil hominids identified are
ridiculously homoplastic with our lineage. Neither of these are
convincing hypotheses in the least and both require a near total
disregard for parsimony. In most regards (e.g. a pronounced diastema;
canine honing complex on P_3; flatter cranial base, angle of petrosal
bone relative to coronal plane; total lack of incisiformation of the
canines) chimps retain a more primitive dentition more akin to Miocene
apes and more akin to other Old World primates. By 4 million years
there was clearly a hominid lineage derived away from this. While
perhaps not ancestral, this most likely indicates sister taxons of
Homo had already split off from the line leading to Pan prior to 4
million ybp.
"

"JAE 16 Aug, 2005

...

Cladistics is a method for infering evolutionary relationships by
analysis of primitive (ancestral) and derived (evolutionary
novelties)
characteristics. Only the latter are important though as the many
retained primitive traits (eg five fingers on each hand when looking
at
humans and chimps) don't say much about how close two creatures are
phylogenetically. Generally, cladistics is blind to fossil age.
About a half a decade ago, Fox et al showed in simulations that
including temporal data in some analyses was better able to resolve
actual phylogenies than without it. This appears to be because it is
not always clear what the ancestral state is and in such cases,
making
the assumption that the older forms have a better chance of holding
the
ancestral character state seems reasonable.

Marc has perverted this on several occasions, claiming that it means
that apiths have primitive traits and modern apes are derived. It
usually comes in this form: after being informed that he has
confounded
primitive and derived traits, he says "Nonsense" and then proceeds to
quote the abstract from Fox and colleagues. After the quote, he does
a
famous Verhaegean illogic to conclude "IOW, most probably, apiths are
primitive, extant apes & humans are derived." His "IOW" is not at
all
what the authors are suggesting. This is NOT what stratocladistics
says in any way, shape or form. The authors did NOT make the
statement
that we should assume that older forms are ancestral and it doesn't
appear in any way, shape or form that Marc did an actual cladistic
analysis. Rather, stratocladistics is a real methodology where
temporal data enters the equation allowing for the possibility of
ancestor-descendant relationships, something that traditional
cladistics does not include or address. Stratocladistics does not
change topologies of trees when there is a rather clear polarization
of
the traits, as there are with many of the cranio-dental
characteristics
among old-world primates, apiths and humans.
"

Ross Macfarlane

.

Relevant Pages

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