Human Evolution

[Genady]

18 minutes ago, mistermack said:

Which means that homo erectus is not extinct

OTOH,

Quote

Homo erectus ... is an extinct species of archaic human

Homo erectus - Wikipedia

[mistermack]

Yes, wikipedia is capable of having one article contradict another. It's just the old problem of definition of words. 

wikipedia :  " Extinction is the termination of a taxon by the death of its last member." 

That obviously never happened with homo erectus. 

In an arbitrary way, you could draw an imaginary line in human history, where this homo erectus was the last one, and it's children were something else. It's an artificial distinction, hence the importance of the definition of words. 

 

[Genady]

7 minutes ago, mistermack said:

Yes, wikipedia is capable of having one article contradict another. It's just the old problem of definition of words. 

wikipedia :  " Extinction is the termination of a taxon by the death of its last member." 

That obviously never happened with homo erectus. 

In an arbitrary way, you could draw an imaginary line in human history, where this homo erectus was the last one, and it's children were something else. It's an artificial distinction, hence the importance of the definition of words. 

 

The issue then is what is the accepted understanding in science today. I think, it is:

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The extinct ancient human Homo erectus...

(Homo erectus, our ancient ancestor | Natural History Museum (nhm.ac.uk))

Quote

The extinction of Homo erectus...

(Extinction of Homo erectus | The Smithsonian Institution's Human Origins Program (si.edu))

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Homo erectus, .. extinct species of the human genus (Homo), perhaps an ancestor of modern humans (Homo sapiens).

(Homo erectus | Definition, Characteristics, Skull, Diet, Tools, & Facts | Britannica)

Etc.

[mistermack]

4 minutes ago, Genady said:

The issue then is what is the accepted understanding in science today. I think, it is:

I think all it shows is that nobody is bothered to nail down definitions. People know what you mean, when you say "extinct species", and that's near enough. The fact that it doesn't match the definition of extinction doesn't really bother anyone. That's how words get their meaning, by general usage. 

There's no contradiction in the understanding of what happened. Homo erectus evolved into the ancestors of homo sapiens. That's what happened, but how you word it is academic. 

I agree that the word extinction is widely used in that manner, but it's also generally used to describe species that ended with no descendants, like the Dodo or the Passenger Pigeon, or T Rex.

In the end, it's word-meaning that's debateable, not what actually happened.

[Genady]

14 minutes ago, mistermack said:

I think all it shows is that nobody is bothered to nail down definitions. People know what you mean, when you say "extinct species", and that's near enough. The fact that it doesn't match the definition of extinction doesn't really bother anyone. That's how words get their meaning, by general usage. 

There's no contradiction in the understanding of what happened. Homo erectus evolved into the ancestors of homo sapiens. That's what happened, but how you word it is academic. 

I agree that the word extinction is widely used in that manner, but it's also generally used to describe species that ended with no descendants, like the Dodo or the Passenger Pigeon, or T Rex.

In the end, it's word-meaning that's debateable, not what actually happened.

This is right. I don't think at any moment we had any differences in understanding what actually happened.

[dimreepr]

12 hours ago, mistermack said:

Yes, wikipedia is capable of having one article contradict another. It's just the old problem of definition of words. 

wikipedia :  " Extinction is the termination of a taxon by the death of its last member." 

That obviously never happened with homo erectus. 

In an arbitrary way, you could draw an imaginary line in human history, where this homo erectus was the last one, and it's children were something else. It's an artificial distinction, hence the importance of the definition of words. 

 

There you go again, hiding behind complexity to obfuscate; it's not arbitrary, the definition of my species is, someone can I successfully mate with it?

Not something we can know about homo erectus, but I'd wager that I couldn't.

Assuming I'm right, then the last homo erectus died when they could no longer successfully mate with the next evolutionary step of us; sure some of their genes servive in us, but then so do the genes of a worm. 

[TheVat]

15 hours ago, mistermack said:

I don't think so. The scientific meaning of extinction means no descendants. It doesn't mean change to something new. T Rex went extinct when the last one died. That was species extinction. Which means that homo erectus is not extinct, it's evolved. There never was a last homo erectus.  

It really depends on what the taxon is, in a particular analysis.  If you take the taxon to be genus, then Homo didn't end when Erectus did.  Heidelbergensis followed and continued the taxon.  If the taxon under discussion is species, however, then the species did end and would satisfy the definition of extinction.  So no one is going to argue these points without the taxon being defined.  If the taxon was class, then we could have a sixth extinction event that left only gophers in the entire class Mammalia and we would say mammals didn't go extinct.  

1 hour ago, dimreepr said:

There you go again, hiding behind complexity to obfuscate; it's not arbitrary, the definition of my species is, someone can I successfully mate with it?

No.   It's someone you can mate with and produce fertile offspring.  Horses and donkeys mate successfully all the time.  But their mule progeny are sterile.

[mistermack]

Seeing as the definition of extinct clashes with the definition of extinct species, it's obviously down to your own preferences, there is no official consistent position. 
My preference is to reserve the word extinct for creatures that have no direct descendants. 

Many evolutionists will insist that dinosaurs are NOT extinct, they are alive and well, and flying about all around us as birds. Even though the birds have clearly evolved from so-called "extinct species" of dinosaurs. 

The root of extinct is in the word extinguish, which means to put an end to a process. When the last ember goes out, the fire is extinguished. If the fire has just evolved, and is just burning differently, I wouldn't call it extinct. It was never extinguished. And that's how I see homo erectus. The line was never extinguished, they just changed a bit.

They never died out. That's my fundamental point. 

[iNow]

Well, yeah. I reckon when we change the consensus meaning of words to better align with our own personal versions of those same words then those words start meaning different things and the conclusions they describe don’t always hold. 

[CharonY]

9 hours ago, mistermack said:

Seeing as the definition of extinct clashes with the definition of extinct species, it's obviously down to your own preferences, there is no official consistent position. 
 

Extinction is actually fairly well defined. If there are not extant members of a particular species, the species is extinct, regardless of speciation events that may have predated the extinction event.

You won't find anyone seriously arguing that the common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees is not extinct, for example.

What you seem to mix up is the use of extinction in the context of higher taxonomic units, in which case a lineage would be fully extinct if they do not have any extant species.

Classification is a bit messy from what I remember. But from what I remember (which might be outdated) the clade Dinosauria historically was divided into two groups: Saurischia (from which birds are eventually descended) and the perhaps confusingly named Ornithischia, (which are extinct). While there might have been considerable reshuffling, in all cases the clade Dinosauria would contain birds as their surviving member. 

It is fairly straightforward and you really just need to look whether there is an extant member on the species levels of whatever taxonomic unit you refer to.

[dimreepr]

21 hours ago, TheVat said:

No.   It's someone you can mate with and produce fertile offspring.  Horses and donkeys mate successfully all the time.  But their mule progeny are sterile.

Kinda sums up my point to mistermack though.

[mistermack]

People are missing the point i'm making over and over. It's a question of terminology, that's all. 

I'm making the distinction between creatures that went extinct, and creatures that simply evolved. 

Homo erectus never went extinct. You are pushing the notion that they are extinct, even though they never went extinct. All you are doing is drawing an imaginary line in their history, and claiming that before that line they existed, and after that line, they didn't, they were homo heidelbergensis. That's fine, it's a way of creating a picture of development that's easy to follow. But I prefer to draw a distinction between real extinction, and imaginary lines. Creatures don't go extinct, just because you change their name.

Instead of referring to "extinct species" I would prefer "ancestral species" , because they're not extinct, by the definition of extinction, or by my own view on what extinction is. 

[swansont]

1 hour ago, mistermack said:

Homo erectus never went extinct

Point to a living Homo erectus.

[mistermack]

[CharonY]

3 hours ago, mistermack said:

People are missing the point i'm making over and over. It's a question of terminology, that's all. 

Also, you are not using the commonly used terminology, including the concept of species. A descendant species is, using the concept of reproductive isolation, not able to form offspring with the ancestral species. As such, there is no genetic flow back (otherwise, they would not be considered separate species). Thus, if the ancestral population dies out, they are extinct. There are cases where an ancestral population might persist at the same time as its descendants, which is more likely for recent and/or fast events (such as hybridization). 

One needs to recall that the fundamental unit in evolution is the species (flawed as the concepts might be) and one has to think about population and descendants in terms of gene flow.

But it does not really make sense to make up a new concept on the spot that is not in line with common understanding and usage of the involved terms.

 

[swansont]

1 hour ago, mistermack said:

I’d have gone with the little blue pill joke, but are you going to address the point?

 

[mistermack]

3 minutes ago, swansont said:

I’d have gone with the little blue pill joke, but are you going to address the point?

Well, I've already addressed it numerous times. But here we go : You said point to a living homo erectus. I referred you to yourself. I assume that you acknowledge that you are a mammal? Even though the original mammal is referred to as "extinct" ? 

In the same way, you are a homo erectus, even though the original homo erectus is referred to as "extinct". 

All of thes sub-divisions are purely arbitrary, just man-made convenient labels for a group/era. 

You are just as much a homo erectus as you are a mammal. 

[swansont]

10 minutes ago, mistermack said:

Well, I've already addressed it numerous times. But here we go : You said point to a living homo erectus. I referred you to yourself. I assume that you acknowledge that you are a mammal? Even though the original mammal is referred to as "extinct" ? 

In the same way, you are a homo erectus, even though the original homo erectus is referred to as "extinct". 

All of thes sub-divisions are purely arbitrary, just man-made convenient labels for a group/era. 

You are just as much a homo erectus as you are a mammal. 

My species is Homo sapiens. Or are the biologists wrong?

[mistermack]

3 minutes ago, swansont said:

My species is Homo sapiens. Or are the biologists wrong?

Did I say it wasn't ?

[swansont]

1 hour ago, mistermack said:

Did I say it wasn't ?

You said I was Homo erectus

Quote

You are just as much a homo erectus as you are a mammal.

That’s not how the classification system works

[Bufofrog]

4 hours ago, mistermack said:

Well, I've already addressed it numerous times. But here we go : You said point to a living homo erectus. I referred you to yourself. I assume that you acknowledge that you are a mammal? Even though the original mammal is referred to as "extinct" ? 

You really really confused.  It is really simple; the class of mammals are not extinct because there mammals living, the species Homo erectus is extinct because there are none of them that are alive.  If you can't understand this I guess it's alright it should not affect your everyday life. 

[mistermack]

2 hours ago, Bufofrog said:

It is really simple; the class of mammals are not extinct because there mammals living, the species Homo erectus is extinct because there are none of them that are alive.

I'm getting a bit bored with the repetition now, so if you have questions, I suggest you read back through the thread. So this is my last post on the subject, unless someone comes up with something new. 

Here is the definition of extinction. Again.  Right from the top, first line : 

Extinction is the termination of a taxon by the death of its last member. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction  

Can you explain how that applies to homo erectus? The taxon was never terminated by the death of it's last member. It's been terminated arbitrarily, by an imaginary dividing line drawn in time by people. They don't know when that line falls, or who was the last homo erectus, and who was the first homo heidelbergensis, because it's an artificial imaginary distinction, it never happened in reality. 

So the taxon was never terminated, there never was a death of the last homo erectus, and therefor they never went extinct. They just had their name changed, two million years later.

[swansont]

23 minutes ago, mistermack said:

I'm getting a bit bored with the repetition now, so if you have questions, I suggest you read back through the thread. So this is my last post on the subject, unless someone comes up with something new. 

Here is the definition of extinction. Again.  Right from the top, first line : 

Extinction is the termination of a taxon by the death of its last member. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction  

Can you explain how that applies to homo erectus? The taxon was never terminated by the death of it's last member.

Sure it has. There are no more of them. They are all dead. Thus, they are extinct.

 

23 minutes ago, mistermack said:

It's been terminated arbitrarily, by an imaginary dividing line drawn in time by people. They don't know when that line falls, or who was the last homo erectus, and who was the first homo heidelbergensis, because it's an artificial imaginary distinction, it never happened in reality. 

Which doesn’t change the fact that there are no more of them. Which really happened. 

We don’t know who the last of most species are, or when that happened, except for rough estimates, even for lineages that died out. The ones we know are the anomalies, not the norm, and partly because we’re living in a mass extinction event.

 

23 minutes ago, mistermack said:

So the taxon was never terminated, there never was a death of the last homo erectus, and therefor they never went extinct. They just had their name changed, two million years later.

Their name was not changed on some whim. There are defining characteristics of H. erectus not present in later species.

Your argument is like saying red is blue, because we can’t objectively nail down exactly where each color transitions to the next one in the ROY G BIV spectrum. 

[Bufofrog]

9 hours ago, mistermack said:

I'm getting a bit bored with the repetition now,

Your argument about extinction has one major flaw, it's wrong.

[studiot]

On 7/4/2023 at 8:16 AM, CharonY said:

Extinction is actually fairly well defined. If there are not extant members of a particular species, the species is extinct, regardless of speciation events that may have predated the extinction event.

You won't find anyone seriously arguing that the common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees is not extinct, for example.

What you seem to mix up is the use of extinction in the context of higher taxonomic units, in which case a lineage would be fully extinct if they do not have any extant species.

Classification is a bit messy from what I remember. But from what I remember (which might be outdated) the clade Dinosauria historically was divided into two groups: Saurischia (from which birds are eventually descended) and the perhaps confusingly named Ornithischia, (which are extinct). While there might have been considerable reshuffling, in all cases the clade Dinosauria would contain birds as their surviving member. 

It is fairly straightforward and you really just need to look whether there is an extant member on the species levels of whatever taxonomic unit you refer to.

 

Thank you for the brief exposition about biological terminology.

I'm very shaky in that regard and it has helped me understand the argument.

+1

 

10 hours ago, mistermack said:

Can you explain how that applies to homo erectus? The taxon was never terminated by the death of it's last member. It's been terminated arbitrarily, by an imaginary dividing line drawn in time by people. They don't know when that line falls, or who was the last homo erectus, and who was the first homo heidelbergensis, because it's an artificial imaginary distinction, it never happened in reality. 

So the taxon was never terminated, there never was a death of the last homo erectus, and therefor they never went extinct. They just had their name changed, two million years later.

Thank you for this summary of your thoughts.

Referring also to some of your other comments on the subject I can see where you are coming from as well

so+1 also.

 

Some of the terms referred to here are more completely defined than others, Taxon for instance seems to me to be akin to a set in maths and is a very general term.

But extinct and extinguish are more specifically defined but I can think of other sciences, eg Geology, Materials Science  and also Physics which have somewhat different definitions.

Extinct can also mean inactive and extinguish can also mean reduce, and we classify self extinguishing materials.

None necessarily refer to there no longer an existing example of that which has undergone the process.

 

 

Then upshot of all this is that I often say it is a good idea to agree what definition of a term you will be working with before starting a discussion otherwise the discussion becomes about the definition as opposed to the original subject.

Edited July 5, 2023 by studiot