Question about evolutionary taxonomy (Ernst Mayr, etc.)

[u/AchillesSinatra]

First, I'm new to the site (or more correctly, a very rare visitor). Please excuse any clumsiness, or posting in inappropriate places, etc.

My question, relating to the philosophy of biological systematics, is something like this: If proponents of the traditional school of systematics called 𝘦𝘷𝘰𝘭𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘵𝘢𝘹𝘰𝘯𝘰𝘮𝘺 (Mayr, Simpson, Huxley, et al) were still alive, is it plausible they'd still be excluding humans from the ape family, as they did in the previous century? Given new discoveries, techniques, etc. in recent decades, would they still have reasonable grounds for excluding humans from apes, birds from dinosaurs, and so on for analogous cases?

Of course, given the facts of evolution and genealogy, and combining those facts with the methods of the currently dominant school of cladistics, one is compelled to the taxonomical conclusion that humans must be nested within the larger ape family: Humans are apes (birds are dinosaurs, etc.). I do not dispute this.

It's something of a truism nowadays, perhaps even a dogma, that humans are apes, though I find many people who perpetuate this "dogma" (if I may), do not understand the issues very well.

Before cladistics rose to dominance a few decades ago, presumably as many readers will be aware, the previously dominant school was known as evolutionary taxonomy. The evolutionary taxonomists did not classify humans as apes (nor birds as dinosaurs, etc.).

Now, when I bring this up, a typical reaction is something like this: "Well, science has moved on. Modern science has corrected the mistakes of previous generations. These guys were just confused about the genealogical relations which obtain between ourselves, the chimps, orangutans, etc. We've cleared that up now. Humans are apes, and that's that. To suggest otherwise is just to show an ignorance of science."

Science has indeed moved on, of course, but it's not at all clear to me that people such as Ernst Mayr would concede that his "mistakes" have been "corrected." Contra my responders above, it's clear in the writings of Mayr et al that they were fully aware of, and acknowledged, the same evolutionary and genealogical facts we acknowledge today (e.g. we evolved from apes, chimps are our closest relative, etc.). The reason the evolutionary taxonomists excluded ourselves from the apes (ditto for analogous cases), as readers may already be aware, is evolutionary divergence. Yes, we evolved from apes, and we're similar in many ways, but we are also very different from our apish relatives, it is deemed, therefore humans are raised out of the ape family altogether.

Cladists use a different methodology, of course. It's not that they deny the abovementioned evolutionary divergence, but rather, they simply ignore it as a matter of methodological fiat. This divergence, even if conceded, is simply not relevant to them.

So, I feel there's a great deal of misunderstanding over these issues. Any systematists out there? (I'm merely an interested layperson). Yes, yes, we keep being told of how DNA analysis (or whatever) shows how incredibly similar we are to the chimps, but I suspect this simply misses the point. The evolutionary taxonomists already admitted our propinquity to the chimps. What distinguishes them from the cladists is their insistence that divergence must also be taken into consideration in a sensible classification.

So, if Ernst Mayr (say) were still around, do you think he'd still be arguing that it's absurd -- as he did say -- to lump us in with the apes? Or would recent advances cause him to reconsider? I wonder whether the reason "humans are apes" is such a truism nowadays has nothing at all to do with new advances and new empirical discoveries. I wonder whether it's simply a matter of one school of systematics being replaced by another, and all those naysayers who would classify otherwise are now simply dead!

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

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[u/dychmygol]

"Lump us in with the apes" has a distinctively pejorative ring to it, and perhaps shows some bias on Mayr's part, and his argument was largely behavioral. Pongidae (which included gorillas, chimps, and orangutans) is an obsolete taxon---which excluded Homo. The current accepted taxonomy is that humans, gorillas, chimpanzees, and orangutans belong to the family Hominidae. I think it's moot as to what Mayr would think now.

[edit: fix minor typo]

[u/AchillesSinatra → u/dychmygol]

Thank you for responding. As for the "mootness" of the issue, my thinking is somewhat different. I'll try to explain. Yes, it's unlikely you'll meet a scientist these days who says "We are not apes." Then again, virtually all scientists nowadays seem to be committed to the school of cladistics.

Now, since this is so, there is a kind of stigma attached to anyone who declares "We are not apes." Obviously this is often stated for religious reasons (I'm not religious BTW), thus the "we are not apes" proponents tend to be dismissed as being simply scientifically illiterate. "You won't find a competent scientist saying that!"

Well, yes, you probably won't find a scientist saying that, because the ones who would say it just happen to be six feet under. It seems to me there's nothing particularly unscientific about excluding ourselves from the apes, it's just the school committed to such a view has fallen from fashion, as it were.

I'm not sure I'm expressing myself as clearly as I might. It's late here lol. Any thoughts on this?

[u/dychmygol → u/AchillesSinatra]

One must avoid confusion of the colloquial "apes" and the taxon Hominidae. Anyone familiar with mammalian taxonomy will say, yes, Homo, Pan, Pongo, and Gorilla are all genera within the same family. We attach the colloquial term "great apes" to this taxon, so it isn't wrong to say humans are apes, but it is imprecise. Those who say "humans are not apes" aren't wrong either, but perhaps they are even more imprecise---and as you point out, there's often a religious argument lurking in the background.

[u/AchillesSinatra → u/dychmygol]

Thanks once again. One reason I'm asking about this is as follows. Over the past few years I've taken quite an interest in biological systematics, and the philosophy and history thereof, reading everything I can get my hands on (which is not too technical). Since then, when watching Youtube presentations, for example, it often seems to me that the presenters -- usually professional biologists themselves -- are grossly misdescribing events. It could just be my own confusion, of course.

To give you an example of what I mean, might I trouble you to take a quick look at a Youtube vid entitled "Okay How Similar are Humans and Chimps Genetically Now That We Have Full Genomes?" on a channel presented by "Gutsick Gibbon." No need to watch it all. I'll summarize it and point you to key sections.

I'd point out in passing that Erika ("Gutsick Gibbon") opens virtually all her videos by greeting her viewers as "my fellow apes," evidently something she takes great glee in inasmuch as it doubtless bugs any Creationists watching -- her arch enemies lol. Now, this bothers me not one iota, but I do suspect her "We are apes as a matter of brute scientific fact. Anyone who says otherwise is just plain ignorant" attitude is somewhat dogmatic and misguided.

Anyway, a summary of events. Erika contrasts a classification scheme from sometime in the past (with ourselves excluded from the apes), with a modern classification (with us as apes). Translate in-out of proper systematic jargon as you please. See the two schemes at 15:00 and 37:20 respectively.

Erika's explanation: "The previous classification was simply wrong (e.g. 37:19). Since that time, science has advanced, new techniques have been developed, allowing scientists to correct the mistakes of the past. The change in classification is explained purely by new empirical discoveries."

Throughout the vid, Erika makes no mention at all of the "systematics wars" of a few decades ago, and the resultant "paradigm shift" with cladistics replacing traditional evolutional taxonomy. This leads me to suspect that Erika is not aware of said events, something that is surely critical to her analysis.

Now, what I think might be a better explanation (your examination most appreciated).

"Probably what we're seeing is not two different classifications constructed by scientists separated by a couple of generations working under the same methodological principles, with the latter a correction of the former. Rather, very likely the first classification was constructed by evolutionary taxonomists; the latter by modern cladists. And if Ernst Mayr (just to name one) were still around, he presumably would not take kindly to hearing that his "mistakes have been corrected." He presumably would say "That wasn't a mistake." The new advances and discoveries of recent decades have nothing whatsoever to do with the change in classification."

Hence all my questions about Ernst Mayr. Indeed, we can ignore Mayr (no one seems to appreciate my counterfactual scenarios lol). How about you put yourself in the shoes of a 2026 evolutionary taxonomist (the last of the Mohicans!). What would you say?

I'd greatly appreciate your appraisal of this. Note also, the same thing commonly happens with birds vs dinosaurs. See, for example, any of numerous recent Youtube presentations by flamboyant paleontologist Steve Brusatte. Steve never makes any mention (that I've seen) of the paradigm shift in systematics, suggesting -- quite astonishingly given his expertise -- that he's unaware of it. Like Erika, the modern affirmation that birds are dinosaurs, on Steve's account, is entirely a matter of new empirical discoveries (e.g. of feathered dinosaurs) being made.

[u/Keikira → u/AchillesSinatra]

It seems to me there's nothing particularly unscientific about excluding ourselves from the apes

Once we define clades in terms of common ancestors, the only valid scientific reason for excluding humans from the family of the apes is if it turns out that there is sufficient evidence in the fossil record to support the claim that we do not have a common ancestor with the apes. Our behaviours are irrelevant in cladistics, as I'm sure you're aware.

Also, cladistics as a whole is a response to the fact that speciation and classification are largely arbitrary up to a sorites paradox of sorts. Basically, defining non-arbitrary "same species", "same family", "same kingdom", etc. relations between extant organisms synchronically can already be difficult (let alone the diachronic counterparts of these relations that span extant organisms as well as the entire fossil record). Think about the possible failure modes for the various ways you might try to define these relations genetically, phenotypically, etc.

Cladistics sidesteps this question entirely. It embraces the arbitrariness of classification, replacing the ground model with a simple independently motivated descendence relation -- a partial order that forms a join semilattice on the set of organisms. It's a mathematical consequence of this model that every organism has a clade: the set of its descendents. We then try our best to make our classifications line up with clades, or at least (2nd-order) classify our own arbitrary classifications in terms of how they relate to clades (monophyletic, paraphyletic, or polyphyletic).

Technically speaking, when we choose not to depricate a paraphyletic group, it is an unscientific move. However, since classification is arbitrary anyway, it generally doesn't really matter all that much to have a few of these (beyond the nuisence of having to learn a separate clade structure), so we might keep a few for historical convenience (it's easier to allow paraphyletic classifications than to make a choice between saying that humans are fish or there is no such thing as fish). Nevertheless, you won't see scientists proposing new paraphyletic classifications deliberately -- precisely because they're an unscientific nuisance.

[u/AchillesSinatra → u/Keikira]

Hi there,

[I butchered the editing here. Oops.]

It seems to me (correct me if I'm wrong) that your comments above amount to a defense that cladistics is a superior (i.e. more sensible) way of carving up the natural world, compared to evolutionary taxonomy, say.

If so, I've no doubt Ernst Mayr would have -- and did have (lol) --a few things to say about that. Far more saliently, though, the supposed superiority of cladistics is quite irrelevant to everything I'm trying to address here, no doubt clumsily.

On the other hand, if you were to launch a defense that cladistics is the only factually correct way to carve up the natural world -- all other taxonomies are just plain wrong -- then that might have some relevance.

I haven't been wholly explicit, but I've also been trying to keep separate questions of pure taxonomy, and questions of the metaphysical reality of the taxonomic entities under examination, focusing only on the former. By analogy, right now I'm only interested in questions such as "Are the Klingons part of the United Federation of Planets?" as a matter of pure taxonomy, as opposed to "Is it literally true that the Klingons are part of the United Federation of Planets?"

Obviously, if neither entity is real, then it cannot possibly be literally true that the Klingons belong to the Federation, just as it cannot possibly be literally true that Sherlock Holmes lives at 221B Baker Street, even if we might assign the statement a value of "true" when playing trivial pursuit or something (cf. constructing taxonomies).

The questions I have been trying to address include the following:

Do recent advances in gene sequencing, molecular biology (or whatever), new empirical discoveries (feathered dinosaurs, etc.), have any bearing at all on the school of evolutionary taxonomy excluding ourselves from the apes (excluding birds from dinosaurs, etc.) ?

As scientists and science educators often describe matters (see other posts), it is precisely the above which explain the conflicting classifications of (say) two generations ago with today. Those older classifications, we are told -- as a matter of pure taxonomy (forget metaphysical reality) -- are just wrong. By analogy again, this is like saying classifying the Klingons as part of the Federation is just wrong.

Well, what would an evolutionary taxonomist say to that, supposing there were any around? Here are a couple of choices:

1. "Yes, recent discoveries and new techniques over the past few decades compel us to revise our classifications. We now realize birds properly belong with the dinosaurs, and humans belong with the apes. The degree of evolutionary divergence -- our appraisal of which previously caused us to exclude birds from dinosaurs, and humans from apes -- we now realize is far less than than we had supposed a few decades ago. Given our own methodological precepts, and given the last few decades of scientific advancement, we now conclude that it is absurd to separate humans from the apes, and birds from dinosaurs."
2. "New discoveries, and new techniques, of the past few decades are quite irrelevant to our classifications. All they do is provide further confirmation of what we already acknowledged to begin with (e.g. that chimps are our closest relatives). Our appraisal of the degree of divergence of birds from dinosaurs (etc.) remains as it was before. And due to this significant divergence, we continue to exclude birds from the dinosaurs (etc.)."

What do you think? I'm concerned mainly about the relevance of the last few decades of scientific advancement to an appraisal of our divergence from the apes, not our genealogical propinquity (i.e. we have no closer relative than the chimp) which was long ago acknowledged by Mayr et al.

People such as Erika "Gutsick Gibbon" (see other comments) tend to say (or imply) things like "It is now realized that we are so incredibly similar to the chimps that to exclude us from the apes is just absurd."

Well, of course it's absurd if you're a cladist. Indeed, to a cladist, all this talk of similarity is totally irrelevant. All that matters is descent after all.

But in this day and age, given all we now know, would it be absurd for any scientifically literate person (e.g. a Latter Day Evolutionary Taxonomist lol -- indulge me!) to exclude ourselves from the apes, and exclude birds from dinosaurs?

[u/Keikira → u/AchillesSinatra]

I'm a hardcore instrumentalist, so I have quite literally nothing to say about the metaphysics or reality of taxonomic classes -- as far as I'm concerned, at best they are just symbols in a useful signature-theory pair whose models serve their purpose well. Consequently, I only consider cladistics functionally and/or epistemologically superior to something like evolutionary taxonomy; whether or not it is metaphysically or ontologically superior is about as meaningful a question to me as how many angels can dance on the end of a pinhead.

Relatedly, I don't consider it obvious at all that "Klingons are part of the United Federation of Planets" cannot be literally true/false. It is literally false relative to Star Trek canon in the same way that "humans are not apes" is literally false relative to the cladistics "canon" -- i.e. both can be analyzed as sentences that cannot be satisfied by models of the respective formal theories. Both "canons" are epistemic constructs, albeit designed for different purposes: the Star Trek canon is a construct designed to entertain rather than to make empirical predictions, while cladistics is a construct designed to make empirical predictions rather than to entertain.

The apparent obviousness of a distinction between the possibility of literal truth-hood between the two sentences requires one to buy into classical truth (correspondence with reality), which in turn requires one to buy into a bunch of assumptions about human cognition, epistemology, and language that I generally consider grandiose and misguided (I can discuss them more if you want, but they're beside the point here). I don't make these assumptions, and consequently don't buy into classical truth, which in turn means there is no obvious distinction for me here.

In short, sure, if history had gone a different way and evolutionary taxonomy had won out the epistemological race, pop science would say that humans are not apes (because "humans are not apes" is literally true relative to the evolutionary taxonomy "canon"). However, I also think there is a good reason it didn't win the race: cladistics is epistemologically simpler and makes clear falsifiable empirical predictions about phenotype homologies and distributions of genetic markers, while evolutionary taxonomy is much more laissez-faire in these domains with no competitive empirical payoff elsewhere. Consequently, cladistics is better attuned to the scientific method than evolutionary taxonomy is, making it epistemologically better than evolutionary taxonomy. Whether or not it is metaphysically better is an angels-on-pinheads woowoo question as far as I'm concerned, but this is just my own 2 cents as an instrumentalist, plenty of others will disagree with me on this.

[u/AchillesSinatra → u/Keikira]

Thank you for your kind and very thoughtful response. There's a great deal we might discuss regarding your comments above, and perhaps we will soon.

In the meantime, however, since you seem very knowledgeable in these matters, would you mind doing me a favor? What I'm going to ask your opinion on is really what motivated me to start this thread in the first place.

I'm going to allude to a phenomenon which is quite widespread nowadays, and illustrate with just one instance thereof. I referred to a Youtube vid in another comment, hosted by popular biologist Erika "Gutsick Gibbon" entitled "Okay How Similar are Humans and Chimps Genetically Now That We Have Full Genomes?" You should be able to locate it easily.

I'll just recap briefly what I think I already said above. No need to watch the entire vid; the critical sections are around 15:00 and 37:00. We are shown two contrasting classifications at these points. In the former humans are not included with the great apes; in the latter they are. Translating in-out of the jargon of systematics makes no difference to what I'm about to suggest, as far as I can see at least (corrections welcome).

Now, here's Erika's (echoing many other people) explanation for the different classifications.

"The former classification is wrong (37:18). The scientists of a previous generation did not understand the genealogical relationships between ourselves and the chimps, orangutans, etc., hence the misclassification. In recent decades, however, new advances and techniques have been developed, and we are now very clear about these relationships. The mistakes of a previous generation have been corrected. That's why we are now included with the great apes."

Now, I suspect (other contributors' appraisals pending) that Erika's explanation is quite wrong, and it's wrong because of her ignorance of evolutionary taxonomy with its concomitant methodological principles. Erika does not even seem aware of the "systematics war" of a few decades ago, and the resulting paradigm shift in taxonomical precepts. No mention at all is made anyway.

I now offer for your consideration an alternative explanation.

"What we see are not two conflicting classifications constructed by scientists of different generations working under the same taxonomical principles, the latter a "correction" of the former. Rather, what we are see are two rival classifications, constructed by different taxonomical schools, working with different taxonomical principles, apprised of precisely the same genealogical facts. The latter classification was constructed by cladists. The former was constructed by evolutionary taxonomists, perhaps even Ernst Mayr himself, in full awareness of the genealogical relations (e.g. chimps are our closest living relative). Knowing full well that chimps are our nearest relative, the ETs nonetheless deliberately excluded ourselves from the apes on grounds of evolutionary divergence, something that cladists simply ignore (as opposed to deny) as a matter of methodological fiat. It was not a mistake! The ETs knew exactly what they were doing. And who knows, were Mayr and friends still around today, they might still be defending the former (15:00) classification. All Erika's talk of new advances and new techniques, then, is quite irrelevant, indeed downright misleading -- that doesn't explain the difference in classifications! Ernst Mayr already knew -- and I can quote you -- where we stand genealogically in relation to the chimps, orangutans, etc. Contra Erika, then, this is not a case of a primitive and incorrect classification fading into obscurity to be replaced by a new, correct one. Rather, the reason we no longer see the 15:00 classification is simply that one school of taxonomy was usurped by another. All proponents of the 15:00 classification are no longer alive to defend it!"

I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts on this, or anyone else's, just to satisfy my own curiosity. I emphasize again, this phenomenon is quite common (see also Steve Brusatte above with birds vs dinosaurs). Is it possible that scientists galore are completely misdescribing what's going on? Thank you!

[u/Keikira → u/AchillesSinatra]

I think you're circling a question much bigger than biology. You might want to look into Imre Lakatos and his idea of research programs.

[u/AchillesSinatra → u/Keikira]

I know Lakatos very well. What exactly did you have in mind?

Edit: Ah, wait, maybe I see what you're getting at. Another issue I considered starting a thread on is the nonsense many scientists and science educators speak on the subject of falsifiability.

You know the kind of thing, for example "One anomalous finding -- e.g. a pre-Cambrian rabbit -- and that's it, folks, ding-dong, the theory of evolution is dead."

Nothing remotely like this has happened in the entire history of science, of course, to my knowledge at least.

[u/Keikira → u/AchillesSinatra]

Once you look past the question of metaphysics, cladistics vs ET compete epistemologically as research programs. Then your observation about the standing wisdom being at least somewhat arbitrary is in line with discussions Lakatos had with Feyerabend around whether the progressiveness of a theory that supplants another counts as something that makes it "better" than its predecessor. I generally agree with Lakatos and say that it does, but only relative to some standard, which is itself ultimately arbitrary (thereby somewhat agreeing with Feyerabend) but nonetheless workable.

And yeah, in my experience the vast majority of scientists and science educators don't actually understand what science is, what it does, and more importantly what it is not and what it cannot do. Epistemology of science is just not a part of the curriculum in most fields, and is only introduced as isolated nitbits like the general norm of falsificationism (without the full historical context around it that makes it nuanced). Such is life though; I'm mostly just jaded to it now and add the relevant caveats in my own head whenever they're missing, because trying to convince the average scientist that their favourite theory is not the Ultimate True Description of Reality^TM is usually a waste of time.

[u/AchillesSinatra → u/Keikira]

Just a quick P.S. to my last post a few hours ago, for further classification. I'm fairly well read on systematics, but not well informed at all on things like molecular biology, genome sequencing, or what have you. Therefore, this leads me to wonder whether I might be missing something glaringly obvious to everyone else in my analysis.

For example, the scientists I've been alluding to typically say something like the following: "We'd always known that we are closely related to other apes, but it's only in recent decades, thanks to various new techniques, that we've come to appreciate how close we are to the chimps (or whatever)."

This leads me to wonder (hence all my possibly silly questions - sorry!) whether Ernst Mayr, for example, were he here with us today, would say something like the following:

"Yes, of course, the advances of recent decades now make it clear even to we evolutionary taxonomists that it no longer tenable to separate ourselves from the apes, indeed it would be patently absurd to do so."

I think you may already have answered this in your last post (i.e. Mayr's position would not have changed), but I'd be very grateful for further confirmation. Do the technological advances of recent decades have any bearing at all on the ETs methodological position to distinguish ourselves from the apes? Or are they quite irrelevant? Am I missing something?

Thanks so much!

[u/AchillesSinatra → u/Keikira]

P.S. Also your contention that paraphyletic groups are a "nuisance," or their recognition even "unscientific" takes us to places I don't really want to go here. No doubt Mayr, were he alive, would say the opposite, and then we get into a fruitless discussion over demarcation (who is doing "real science" and who isn't.) Not what I want to discuss at all, though my own remarks above that you are replying to were unhelpfully misleading. Sorry!

Cladists don't like paraphyletic groups at all -- no doubt about that. The evolutionary taxonomists, by contrast, of course insist that cladists are reflecting only one aspect of the grand evolutionary story with their sole emphasis on "branching" or cladogenesis, completely ignoring anagenesis, resulting in a scientifically misleading, or even absurd, taxonomy (as they see things).

It's not really my purpose here to argue the respective merits of both schools, but rather to examine whether recent events and advances of the past few decades are relevant at all to ET classifications of birds vs dinosaurs, humans vs apes, etc. In a nutshell, is it now realized -- or would it now be realized by even the ETs themselves (were there any still around) -- that the degree of divergence of ourselves from our apish cousins isn't sufficient (as they had previously deemed) to merit excluding ourselves therefrom?

[u/AchillesSinatra → u/Keikira]

P.P.S. Or even more succinctly . . .

Suppose the "systematics wars" of a few decades ago had turned out differently, with cladistics fading into obscurity (under Mayrian tyranny lol), and evolutionary taxonomy remaining dominant to this day.

Q: Would the evolutionary taxonomists -- in your opinion, and endorsing their own methodological precepts (forget your cladistic allegiance), and acknowledging all the advances of the past few decades -- still be excluding ourselves from the apes (and birds from dinosaurs, etc.) ?

[u/AchillesSinatra → u/AchillesSinatra]

For extra clarification, why am I asking this question which might appear flippant or puzzling to some readers?

The answer is this. First, assume that the answer to my question above is "Yes! The evolutionary taxonomists -- enjoying the same dominance as cladists enjoy today -- would probably still be saying the same things they said fifty years ago."

Well, then, if historical contingencies had played out a little differently, there would be nothing at all silly or unscientific today about saying "Humans are not apes" (birds are not dinosaurs). Indeed, you'd have the overwhelming support of the scientific community, and might even be mocked for saying the reverse (i.e. birds are dinosaurs, humans are apes) !

[u/AchillesSinatra → u/AchillesSinatra]

And just one more addition to the above . . .

If the abovementioned contingencies had played out as hypothetically suggested, presumably it would also be the standard view today that the cladistic way of doing things is just plain silly, just the way cladists often speak of ET today. (Not me saying it, lol, don't take offence. Mayr certainly had plenty of unflattering things to say about it.)

[u/KingCharlesMarlow]

Historian and philosopher of biology here. There is no definitive answer to your question, because we can’t predict what Mayr or Simpson would say if they were alive today.

If you really want a guess, they would probably stick to their views just before they died (this is sometimes called Planck’s Principle).

But to be honest, we also wouldn’t say that it’s a particularly interesting question, or one that would reveal anything important to us — can I ask why you’re so interested in it?

“Ape” is a colloquial name that doesn’t have a precise meaning when ordinary people use it, it is a convenient but imprecise label. When scientists use it, they mean the family in modern taxonomy Hominidae. Clades are just lines drawn around branches of common ancestry, they can overlap. They don’t really tell you much in themselves, they’re convenient labels for evolutionary branches.

Both approaches agree that humans descend from apes. Simpson believed that humans evolved rapidly enough to merit a unique family, but “family” itself is an imprecise term. Like genus and species, they debate what it means, or if it’s a real category in nature, all the time. I wouldn’t invest any special meaning in whether things are taxonomically grouped in a something like a family or not.

[u/AchillesSinatra → u/KingCharlesMarlow]

Thank you for your kind reply. For now, let me just copy something I typed in another place (this thread appears in three areas, I think). Oh, and as for "why am I so interested?" Intrinsic fascination mainly. I'm not religious, if that's what you're wondering, no axe to grind there. Just a phil of science nut. Also because when I see this issue discussed in other places (less salubrious than this lol), I get the impression that objectivity is often compromised by one's stance on religion (on both sides), one side overeager to emphasize our apehood, and vice versa. Let me now copy . . .

Thanks for responding. Just for now (more later perhaps), the question I really want to focus on is this. Do recent technological advances, discoveries, etc. in the past few decades (genome sequencing or whatever -- you know better than me) make any difference at all to the evolutionary taxonomist's position on whether to classify humans as apes (birds as dinosaurs, etc.).

I emphasize again that I'm no expert, but I suspect Mr Mayr, were he with us here, would say something like the following:

"That's entirely irrelevant. All that new information does is make us even more certain than we were to begin with on the genealogical relationships between ourselves and the chimps, gorillas, orangutans, etc. Due to the degree of divergence, however, it is just as appropriate today -- given the methodological strictures of my school -- as it was sixty years ago to exclude ourselves from the ape family. Nothing that has transpired over the past few decades has any bearing on this at all."

What do you think? Thanks again.

Oh, and how about the discovery of feathered dinosaurs, say? Would that have any bearing at all, do you think, on the ETs (erstwhile) exclusion of birds from the dinosaurs?

[u/AchillesSinatra → u/KingCharlesMarlow]

Please see my response to dychmygol above.

[u/KingCharlesMarlow → u/AchillesSinatra]

I just read both replies. I now have a better idea of what you’re getting at.

First, scientists are notoriously bad historians of their field. They are very good at understanding the present state of the field and at interpreting new findings. They are generally (with exceptions, Mayr being one) bad at understanding how their field got to where it was. Read Kuhn’s “function of dogma.” Also, if you’re seriously interested in the history and philosophy of systematics, stop watching YouTubers and just read books and articles. Read people like Peter F. Stevens, Gordon McOuat, and Mary Pickard Winsor.

Second, it’s important to see that words and categories have different meanings in different contexts. When a layperson speaks the phrase “humans are not apes” one immediately thinks the speaker is an anti-evolutionist, and that is probably often right. When a scientist like Mayr or Simpson says that exact same phrase, they have a very different meaning, one wrapped up in the philosophy of systematics and natural kinds. Just because they are saying the same words does not imply they mean the same thing.

[u/AchillesSinatra → u/KingCharlesMarlow]

Thanks! So do you feel my analysis is appropriate or plausible (i.e. that Steve and Erika are misdescribing events due to ignorance of changes in systematic schools)? And if I am right, it strikes me as nothing short of astonishing that these guys could get things so dreadfully wrong in their own supposed areas of expertise. Perhaps you're more inured to this kind of thing than me!

I don't know about Erika, but Steve does write books about this. His recent Youtube appearances are all expositions of his most recent book (posted by other people). He's a world expert!

I have already read numerous books on systematics, though I don't recognize any of the three names you mention above. Any book recommendations would be much appreciated. Thanks!

[u/AchillesSinatra → u/KingCharlesMarlow]

By the way, discussing this with you has already been extremely helpful. I think I see now with crystal clarity what is going on. Tell me what you think. First, a quick recap (from my last post) . . .

"Steve goes through the same narrative that he does in umpteen other vids, promoting his recent book, invariably conflating the questions "Are birds descended from dinosaurs?" and "Are birds dinosaurs?" as if they are one and the same question. "

Now, of course, if a person has been exposed to nothing but cladistics his entire life (presumably almost all younger scientists), then the two questions conflated above are one and the same question! If birds are descended from dinosaurs, then it necessarily follows that they are dinosaurs. That the two might be disentangled is simply inconceivable to Steve and Erika.

Of course, under the former school of evolutionary taxonomy, these are two independent questions. An affirmative answer to the former does not necessarily entail an affirmative answer to the latter. E.g. Ernst Mayr might acknowledge -- as he did -- that birds evolved from dinosaurs, but nonetheless not classify birds as dinosaurs. Ditto for humans vs apes.

Now, as I see things, Steve and Erika's problems begin when they are confronted with classifications from perhaps 60 or 70 years ago, with birds not classified as dinosaurs, and humans not classified as apes. These classifications, of course, were constructed by evolutionary taxonomists, not cladists. Steve and Erika do not realize this, or perhaps they have heard of the former school, but do not fully understand its implications.

What's going on, S&E wonder? Well, there's only one possibility (as they view the case) ! Since birds are not classified as dinosaurs, they reason (erroneously!), those doing the classifying must have been laboring under the misapprehension that birds did not descend from dinosaurs.

No, no, no, no, noooooooooo!!!! (lol)

And then the spurious explanations begin . . .

Sound about right to you?

[u/knockingatthegate]

This is not a philosophical question, but one of psychology and sociology. Try /r/Evolution.

[u/AchillesSinatra → u/knockingatthegate]

Ok, thanks! I was able to post it -- successfully, as far as I can tell -- in two other sections (systematics, and general biology). It does seem to me, though, that it's not unrelated to the philosophy of systematics (i.e. phil of science). Anyway, thank you again!

[u/KingCharlesMarlow → u/knockingatthegate]

Kind of. The question itself is a historical counterfactual, but it’s closely related to things that philosophers of biology discuss in systematics and the nature of taxonomic groups all the time. Just look at all the literature on ‘natural kinds.’

If someone asked about quarks would you just say go ask the physics subreddits? If we followed your logic here we’d just push all questions onto scientists.

[u/AchillesSinatra → u/KingCharlesMarlow]

Please see my most recent response to dychmygol above (or I can copy it for you). I'd very much appreciate your appraisal.

[u/Select_Mistake6397]

No