Delaware students can now choose their own race (Yes, RACE!) under new regulations.

[Final-Fan]

o_O.Q said:

Final-Fan said:

1.  OK, so if bats have evolved legs instead of wings, then birds have evolved legs instead of wings, too, correct?  After all, they evolved their so-called wings from legs as well. 

2.  What exactly are your "strict groups" defining?  What is being separated and delineated? 

3.  Although there are certainly populations that have been separated morphologically, genetically, reproduction-wise, etc., it is important to remember that they are all part of a continuum connected in the past via common ancestry.  So the elephant doesn't swim with the fish, but perhaps the hippopotamus's great-to-the-millionth grandfather and the whale's were the same creature.  So if you say you can identify natural groups that 100% separate these creatures, surely this must be applicable to past species as well, right?  Where do you draw the line on the continuum? 

Where is the line between red and yellow? 


Or do you just mean that because of the built-up differences over time, you are fine with the human-oriented groupings?  (In other words, a lot of the "reddish-yellowish" stuff is safely in the past, so there are many cases where we can get away with saying this bunch is "red" and this bunch is "yellow".) 

"OK, so if bats have evolved legs instead of wings, then birds have evolved legs instead of wings, too, correct?  After all, they evolved their so-called wings from legs as well.  "

yeah if you want, knock yourself out

 

"What exactly are your "strict groups" defining?  What is being separated and delineated?  "

well when i use the word "elephant" you understand that i'm not referring to a fish right?

why would that be?

 

"Although there are certainly populations that have been separated morphologically, genetically, reproduction-wise, etc., it is important to remember that they are all part of a continuum connected in the past via common ancestry."

which is irrelevant to my argument, so... i don't see why you keep bringing this up

 

"  So the elephant doesn't swim with the fish, but perhaps the hippopotamus's great-to-the-millionth grandfather and the whale's were the same creature."

so what?

 

"Where do you draw the line on the continuum?  "

again... when i use the word elephant you understand quite clearly that i'm not referring to a fish

why is that?

 

"Or do you just mean that because of the built-up differences over time, you are fine with the human-oriented groupings?"

how did we now start talking about human groupings from his claim about there being no clear divisions between animals?

 

"Where is the line between red and yellow?  "

lol i never figured that you'd just double down and actually try to back up his nonsensical argument, i must say you've surprised me

clarify this for me how is the colour spectrum between red and yellow relevant to a discussion about animal divisions?

1.  So what is the point of calling penguin flippers "evolved wings" when they are really just "evolved legs"?  Sure, penguin flippers used to be wings.  They used to be a lot of things.  They're not actually wings anymore. 

3.  I thought the analogy was pretty fucking clear but let me try to spell it out further. 

Presume that the elephant and the fish have a common ancestor.  Since the process of evolution depends on the gradual accumulation of small changes over a large number of generations, if we go back and back in time the elephant's ancestors eventually start to look a little bit more like the fish's ancestors.  Eventually you get to the common ancestor and they are the same population of creature. 

The question for you is, if there are strict natural groupings dividing all creatures including creatures that lived in the past, where do you draw the line between elephants and fish and elephant-ancestors and fish-ancestors when there is a continuum of infinitesimally different, almost identical, creatures connecting them? 

P.S.  "there is a continuum of infinitesimally different, almost identical, creatures" color spectrum analogy "there is a continuum of infinitesimally different, almost identical, colors"