Credit: M.F. Bonnan via “I f***ing love science (on Facebook).
Yes, exactly! A significant percentage of the population (cough, creationists, cough) doesn’t understand that the evolutionary relationships between species is a lot like that between extended family members; just over a much longer time scale. Phylogeny is primarily a branching (family) tree-like pattern, not a single file, ladder-like, progression (cladogenesis vs. anagenesis).
Addendum: It has been pointed out to me that the cartoons depiction of a family “tree” superimposed on a cladogram is somewhat inapt and I absolutely agree that the cartoon is by no means a perfect analogy (comparing speciation, species giving rise to new species, with two parents coming together and bearing children). However, I think it gets the idea across much better than the linear iconography that has become so entrenched in peoples minds. Especially, I think, concerning the relationships between fairly closely related species like between chimps and humans. People incorrectly tend to think of humans as somehow being directly descended from chimps rather than our being “cousins” descended from a common “grandparent” (that was probably somewhat chimp-like in appearance).
Once you grok this fact you will understand what is fundamentally wrongheaded about questions like: “If humans evolved from [share a common ancestor with] apes why are there still apes?”
This sort of question is, except for the timescale involved, just like asking: “If you and your cousin share a common ancestor (grandmother), how can you both exist at the same time?”
Understanding this also answers the common creationist objection against many transitional fossil series based on species overlapping in time. For example:
“Early” horses have been preserved in strata from the same evolutionary age as several ‘”later” horses
Hyracotherium/Eohippus and Orohippus do for instance appear in the fossil record at the same time as Epihippus. Mesohippus and Miohippus appear together with Merychippus and Parahippus. Almost all other horses (with a possible exception of one or two)—Parahippus, Merychippus, Pliohippus, Equus and possibly also Miohippus—are represented at the same time during much of the period when they have been found as fossils.16 (But especially in the newer evolutionary schemes, different names have been given to very similar animals, giving the appearence of evolution as well as providing fame to their discoverers; see examples in Froehlich 20029 and MacFadden 20054). Fossils of Hyracotherium (sic) have also been found very high up in the strata (Pliocene), but these findings have been rejected as reworked (i.e. eroded and deposited at a later strata) in spite of the fact that the geological observations do not show any signs of disturbance.17 Thus, the fact that most of the horses lived almost at the same time undermines their proposed evolution. (Molén, 2009, emphasis mine)
Buzzzt, sorry but that is incorrect, thank you for playing, here is a home version of our game as a consolation prize.*
The coexistence of two genera of horses does nothing to undermine their evolutionary relationship any more than your grandparent or cousin coexisting with you undermines your familial relationship.
Evolution does not require that a parent species become extinct after a speciation event (after it gives “birth” to a new daughter species) nor does it require that once two lineages split apart that both will change at the same rate or in the same direction.
Fossil species A could be directly ancestral to species B, persisting relatively unchanged after the two lineages have split. Or species A could be a cousin to species B that only strongly resembles an as yet undiscovered common grandparent species. Such distinction are very difficult to make in fossil organisms.
[* Note: This is not even close to a comprehensive dissection of the problems with quoted article or even this paragraph.]
Reference
Molén, Mats (2009) “The evolution of the horse“, Journal of Creation 23(2):59–63 (downloaded on 9-14-2013)
My friend Don has given me a microscope! He salvaged it from his work where they were apparently just going to throw it away. It’s a bit old but still serviceable and a quantum leap above the even older toy one I had.
Someday I would like a decent dissecting scope (since my interests run more towards the not quite microscopic but still sometimes small). Maybe something with a digital camera built into it…
Regardless, thank you Don!!! Much appreciated!
By Carl Zimmer:
[Hat tip to Brian Switek.]
Yes, the Carnival of Evolution LIX is up and waiting for your visit from wherever in the nigh on infinite reaches of time/space you might happen to be reading this from. This month it is being hosted at DNA Barcoding, and is titled “A letter from the Doctor”.
Now go check it out or the Daleks will win!
I have been shamefully neglectful of my participation of the Carnival of Evolution but all the previous installments can be found here. If you missed any of these you’ll definitely want to go check them out as well!
Don’t ask me…
As I continue to try and adapt to having a significantly longer commute to work, settle into our rental house, and generally try to get my crap together, here are some pictures of some critters I’ve encountered over the last few months.
First a mollusk:
I discovered this rather large (approx. 10cm) slug making its way across my front walk. Not sure about my ID but I’d say it was possibly a Limacus flavus, which would make this an introduced ALIEN SLUG! [Scream!]
Secondly a couple different arthropods, one terrestrial and the other aquatic:
This dangerous little bugger was hitchhiking in a load of horse manure that my mother was unloading from the back of her pickup truck. A centipede, probably a Scolopendra polymorpha. After I told my mother that I wasn’t interested in adopting it she ended up feeding it to her chickens, which was probably a little spicier than their usual fare.
OK, there is a bit of a set up to our next crawly, or rather swimy critter. I was on my way to work one morning and while driving by a vacant lot around the corner from my house, I noticed three adults standing around a large puddle in middle of the lot that was left over from some recent rain. My brain noted that this was an unusual thing to see, so I slowed down a bit and saw that a couple of them were holding small fishnets, of the sort that an aquarist might keep handy. Quickly running through the possibilities of what three adults with fishnets standing around a small ephemeral body of water in a generally arid environment might be up to and my brain instantly hit upon what seemed to be the only logical conclusion…BIOLOGISTS!
Unfortunately I was already a little late for work and couldn’t stop and talk to them, however I immediately vowed to myself that I would visit the puddle ASAP to see what might have drawn a trio of probable biologists to this vacant lot. So on my way home from work I stopped at the lot and checked out the puddle.
At first I didn’t see anything but once my eyes adjusted to what I was looking at I noted some small (maybe 2cm) things swimming fairly vigorously around the puddle. At first I thought that they might be fish, perhaps Gambusia which are often stocked in our local waterways to control mosquitoes. This wasn’t totally crazy as there is a catchment basin immediately adjacent to the lot and I thought that, while it was unlikely, it might be possible for some Gambusia to have somehow made it into this puddle. However given that this was a very ephemeral body of water and that Gambusia would be considered “junk fish” by an ichthyologist I quickly dismissed this idea.
Looking a bit closer at the tiny swimming creatures I realized what their true nature was and why thy might be of interest to biologists became much less of a mystery. They were fairy shrimp, possibly of the Family Streptocephalidae, some members of which are very endangered. In this case possibly Streptocephalus woottoni A.K.A. the “Riverside fairy shrimp“, though this puddle was a little shallow (under 30mm) for the normal bodies of water that S. woottoni are supposed to inhabit.
Anyway, after seeing that they were indeed fairy shrimp I rushed home and got one of my critter keepers (a small plastic aquarium) and fashioned a small, pitiful, net out of a coat-hanger and one of my wife’s old nylon stockings. Pitiful as my jury-rigged net was, it allowed me to catch a few of the shrimp.
Fear not for the shrimp though, after I photographed them (which isn’t an easy thing!) I returned them to their puddle which remained habitable for three or four days longer.
Last but not least a couple different chordates, in this case both mammals:
While driving through a local rural area (Reche Canyon) my wife and I spotted a herd of feral burros (Equus africanus asinus) that we had heard (get it?) lived in the area. I wasn’t able to get too close to them and only had my cell phone camera so these are not the best pictures. However if you look carefully at the second picture below you’ll get a glimpse of some “hot donkey action” going down (brown chicken, brown cow!).
Apparently there is something of a mystery involving these burros lately. It seems that several of the newborns have gone missing and it becoming a concern for the locals who watch over them.
Finally a rough pair of middle aged male apes (H. sapiens). Yours truly with Dr. Sean B. Carroll Professor of Molecular Biology, Genetics, and Medical Genetics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison at U.C. Riverside on 2-11-2013. Dr. Carroll had just given a very entertaining talk: Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origins of Species about the adventures and scientific contributions of Alfred Russel Wallace, Charles Darwin and Henry Walter Bates in honor of Darwin Day 2013 (Photo and my shirt by Lani Britain, a.k.a. Mom).
OK, so this wasn’t a scathing dissection of creationist silliness, but it was something…
Young Earth creationist Dr. Duane T. Gish died yesterday (March 5th) at the age of 91 or 92 [depending on which birth date on Wikipedia is correct. I e-mailed ICR for a clarification]. Dr. Gish, a biochemist, was a founding member of the Institute for Creation Research (which he was the long time vice president of) and noted for his frequent debates with defenders of evolution and several books attacking evolutionary theory, primarily on the basis of the fossil record.
My sincere condolences to his friends and family.
I first ‘met’ Dr. Gish in 1994 at UCLA where he was to debate Dr. Michael Shermer of the Skeptics Society. My friend Don Frack and I knew roughly where on campus the debate was to be held but didn’t have an exact route on how to get there in mind. So at one point we took a short cut through a building and when we got to far end, which we figured should be near our destination, we opened the door and literally came face to face with Dr. Gish himself (who as I recall was looking for the restroom). Don laughingly told me that I looked like I had seen a ghost.
Yours truly with Dr. Gish at the Southern California Center for Christian Studies 1998 Summer Conference (August) (Photo by Don Frack)
I have a few other minor stories I could tell about Dr. Gish and a mountain of criticisms I could relate about his work, but this is not the time.
Again, my condolences to his family.
A little bit of musical paleo fun (hat tip to Mr. Weitzenhoffer):
For those unfamiliar the video for the original “Party Rock Anthem” by LMFAO can be found here.
Kathy and I are moved into our new (rented) home but still surrounded by boxes, some of which still contain much of my library. Hopefully it won’t be too long before I can get my stuff organized so I can start thinking about blogging again…
Playing Chess with Pigeons 