New book on climate and human evolution 10 Mar 2010 I hope this works and WordPress doesn’t strip out the HTML code [later note: It did]. This looks like an interesting book, although its evolutionary tree is a bit old fashioned, almost Haeckelian. Biology Evolution Species and systematics
Education Well deserved honor to Genie Scott by California Academy of Sciences 12 Oct 2009 NCSE’s executive director Eugenie C. Scott will receive the Fellows’ Medal, the highest honor of the California Academy of Sciences, in a ceremony in San Francisco on October 13, 2009. read more [From Eugenie C. Scott honored by California Academy of Sciences] My congratulations to Genie… Read More
Evolution Vagabonds in taxonomy 27 Jul 2008 A new genus name for water mites, from a recent paper in Zootaxa: Vagabundia comes from the Spanish word ‘vagabundo’ that means ‘wanderer’. It is a feminine substantive; sci refers to Science Citation Index. We pointed out some time ago (Valdecasas et al. 2000) that the popularity of the Science… Read More
Evolution The trashcan categorial 20 Nov 2008 I’m introducing a new category – the Trashcan. This is a term used in systematics to identify a group that comprises “everything else” once you have done the identification of the real groups of some taxonomic grouping. I will be using the Trashcan to group together all and only those… Read More
Interesting. You don’t really see diagrams that take the “tree” metaphor so far any more. I wonder if they just did this for purely nostalgic reasons. The pdf ought to make for good spring break reading…….Ah, who am I kidding. I’ll have more work during spring break than I do when school is in session. :-/
It’s been suggested previously that climate/vegetation played an important role in human evolution, but our time interval precision has been too fluffy to provide anything definitive. It is certainly reasonable to assume a role for climate and vegetation (the increase in grass over trees for example) but the reality is that it’s probably a mess of factors interacting at various levels. Biology is meesy like that.
Not quite as clunky as the weird spinal cord that ran with Ardipithecus last year. But, similar in a way with all of that fake data and chart junk. I blame g.g. simpson. Just kidding. No I’m not. Yeah, I am.
are there really data supporting those side branches that went extinct? I count three each on the bonobo and chimpanzee branches in the pleistocene, and numerous others throughout.
No direct data as far as I know, but evolutionary theory predicts that there would be such branches. Their particular placement is just arbitrary, as far as I can tell. The only extinct side branch on the chart supported by data, that I know of, is paranthropus.
Is there are problem with this style of depicting evolving species? I realise that we shouldn’t read it as ascent to some pre-planned outcome or with progress. However, it is accurate in respect of time and putative branching isn’t it? Is it considered old fashion and not now done because some fear people may see it as ascent?
the short side branches that imply extinctions are probably not accurate or based on real fossil data, but as Wes said, the theory predicts extinctions, so it appears those branches were added arbitrarily to show that. I don’t think this tree necessarily implies some kind of directional progress though.
Thanks Paul, It was the comment made by our host although its evolutionary tree is a bit old fashioned, almost Haeckelian. , as well as the note by Wes You don’t really see diagrams that take the “tree” metaphor so far any more. I wonder if they just did this for purely nostalgic reasons. that had me somewhat at a loss and wondering what is wrong with the diagram, if anything.
I can’t see very much wrong with your tree – but JW was *probably* hoping for a few more indications of “horizontal” gene transfer.