#taxon

[mineralsrocksandfossiltalks]

Throwdown Thursday

As folks who traverse the internet on a regular basis we have all come across people who have somehow managed to miss every scientific advancement made in the last century (or more) and just refuse to accept they are on the losing end of their own arguments. So, how do you handle these people?

Well, the most important thing is to NOT try and convince them you are right and they are wrong. In the following screenshots, you will see bits of a conversation on a tiktok video of someone I follow meant to adress this comment made on another of his videos. I won't show the whole conversation because, frankly, it's ridiculously long and shouldn't be but the poor person trying to refute him didn't know how to just...well, let the guy live in oblivion. They tried the poor thing.

Anyway, let's dive in with his initial comment:

I bet you can see where this is going. The video was a brilliant explanation on taxonomy and how we classify animals now (we no longer use Linnean classification as genetics have proven it simply doesn't work).

Now, this same commenter turned up in the comments to the new video with more biting stubbornness and some poor soul tried to make him see reason but I could tell from the start this guy wasn't gonna budge. So, how do you deal with someone who won't accept the facts? Use their own methods against them. Here's how you would approach some of the statements and questions this person puts forth in this insanely long debate.

Let's start with his original comment: reptiles never turned into birds.

Where is your proof? How do you know that statement is false? Can you prove it's false? Or, you can use his own words:

Now, for his first comment on the new post, I think oblivion nailed it. Stating that his one and only example of what differences there are is not a solid defense of his statement. You would then ask if he had other, more irrefutable examples and go from there.

Again, use his own words: "Since you won't accept the evidence fibsh has already put forth, what do you consider 'real evidence'?" Or maybe "What real evidence is there that you are related to you 100th great grandfather besides some written word?"

This one we don't answer with a question, more of a statement. Something like "well, yeah, everything has been interpreted by 'some guy'. A well known example is the Bible.

There's lots that can be brought up here like a list of mesotherms (animals that are neither warm or cold blooded but somewhere in between) such as crocodiles, tegus (technically a warm blooded lizard but I am tossing it in for funsies), leatherback sea turtles, tuna, great white sharks, some species of bees, naked mole rats, hyraxes, echidnas. Notice none of these are all in one group. We have "reptiles", fish, insects and mammals all listed. This just goes to show that body temp is not a good way to classify animals.

However, a guy like this will probably use his favorite catch phrase in this conversation:

Reptiles also are not the only animals to have scales. What about fish? Butterflies? Pangolins?

He claims that you can't use scales as a grounds for relationship (even though he just said all reptiles exclusively had scales) so then ask him "what is a ground for a relationship then?" Make him explain his statement.

This one can be a bit tongue-and-cheek: hell yeah, we're both mammals so we are distantly related. Don't even acknowledge the rest. Agreeing with their statement will confuse the stubborn soul.

Two things I can say to this, one using his own arguments:

Fact: it is your opinion that evolution is an opinion. Give me evidence to back up your claim.

Again, what proves a relationship?

Three times he makes exceptions to this unspoken rule (we think he's using Linnean reasoning but it's a bit hard to tell as he kind of goes all over the place). So I would ask "How many exceptions can be made before the rule is considered invalid?"

Continuing on from his first exception he asks:

So, what do you do when they ask for an answer after arguing a bunch?

"Why? You've haven't accepted any of the other viable scientific evidence given why would this instance be any different?"

I mean, you look like your family, don't you? (And yes, I am including extended family and ancestors) Where is your evidence that you can't know something had offspring? We can only trace human DNA back 10 generations so how to we know they reproduced beyond that? Oh...right, we all exist. (Sarcastic line probably should be left out but I couldn't help myself).

By that logic, identical twins would be considered the same person.

You...you recognize this and don't see ANY connection...AT ALL? And to the second point:

Of course, when he does actually use this he doesn't give any evidence to back up any of his arguments so...bring that up as much as possible.

I thought evolution was pseudoscience. Or only when it doesn't support your opinion?

You weren't alive in the 1940's to collect data so did the Holocaust actually happen then?

What proof do you have? They aren't even attached to anything...(hint, he things they need them to mate).

Then explain why gharials looks so different from all the other crocs.

Do you know what an expert is? It is the opposite of an amateur...which is what you are.

Oh boy...wait till you find out about Mandarin Ducks (they can't breed with other ducks).

It keeps going so if you are interested in seeing the full conversation here is the link:

Anyway, good luck with the tough cookies and remember it's not about being right. It's about making them eat their words.

[ghanjrho]

I'm going to go into a little more detail about the problems in taxonomy, because I can and you can't stop me.

Modern taxonomy uses the Linnaean system, named for it's inventor Carl Linnaeus. The basic structure of the system is a series of 8 ranks of ever increasing scale and broadness. For example, let's take the dog.

Dogs are a species. The genus Canis is made up of several species that share large numbers of traits with dogs, such as wolves and coyotes. The tribe Canini adds jackals and dholes. The family Canidae adds foxes. The order Carnivora adds bears, cats, and hyenas. The class Mammalia adds the rest of the mammals, such as cattle, elephants, and humans. The phylum Chordata includes anything with a spinal cord. Then we have the kingdom Animalia, and finally the domain Eukaryota, which includes anything with cells that have a nucleus.

At every step up the tree, the groups are broader and broader, defined by ever more encompassing lists of traits. We expect Chordates to have a spinal cord. We expect mammals to be warm-blooded and hairy. This gives scientists a nice, delightfully ranked model to categorize everything they see.

It is NOT without issues.

For starters, and this is the big one, Carl predated both Gregor Mendel and Charles Darwin, which means he was working without theories of genes and evolutionary descent. His observations and categories were based solely on shared traits; fish were fully aquatic vertebrates. The idea that any of these species might have common ancestors was something he was simply not equipped for. And therein lies the problem.

@futureevilscientist used the word monophyletic. That is a fancy science term for "descending from one common ancestor". There was one creature that started to evolve a spinal cord that all others descend from, so chordates are monophyletic. As much as possible, taxonomists are going through the ranks, bludgeoning classifications into proper monophyletic groups, but there are some sticky issues. Like birds. Birds are descended from one order of reptiles, but Aves and Reptilia are both classes. Aves should really be a subclass, but that involves rewriting centuries of classifications, and is generally a non-starter.

And yes, it's a mess trying to define fish. At best, at best, you find yourself saying "all members of subphylum Vertebrata, except those that are members of the superclass Tetrapoda."

[Tweet from @/fozmeadows: "human gender and sexuality are very much like animal taxonomy, in that both look structured and simple on the surface, but once you start investigating, it turns out there's actually no such thing as a fish despite the fact that we all know what a fish is, and that's okay"]

[miyrumiyru]

Yellow butterfly is on a yellow flower... 💛

(F) Eastern pale clouded yellow (Colias erate)

Lanceleaf coreopsis (Coreopsis lanceolata)

[five-of-cr]

jesper: my boyfriend likes bugs so much, sometimes i think he'd love me MORE if i were a worm

[stargazing-zani]

Fall of a Sparrow, a Wikipedia poem

[swan2swan]

I love when I can blend headcanons with canon canon.

For example, my headcanon of "Yasmina Fadoula knows nothing about dinosaurs" mixed with the canon of Yaz accurately describing Pteranodons as flying reptiles. This combination produces the super-valid headcanon of "Darius kept yelling at Yaz because she called Mosasaurus and Pteranodons dinosaurs", supported by canon:

[fishyfishyfishtimes]

Nothing better to start the fungi battles with than with a new profile picture!

Ta-da! The new profile picture for @battle-of-the-taxons is here! Like I said, the more we figure out Tumblr's favourite organism, the more specific the profile picture will get :3 Get ready to see the fungi phyla polls in the near future!!!

[multicellularlettuce]

I don’t use Spotify so no Spotify wrapped for me. Not to worry though, because I have my iNaturalist Year in Review!!

[victusinveritas]

A photographer took the first ever photograph of a living coelacanth. https://bbc.in/4b5oX5q

[z0rrp]

Haha worm

@theratcloset to yo liek mi artvorck

Zerzebzbeb piramide pipipi zerb zeerzeer

[electricpurrs]

my gender is cartoon cat. i'm a cat but not like a real life cat, or really a "furry" cat, i'd like to be a cat character in a cartoon or anime or children's book illustration, or a 2009 deviantart oc. not a cat but an artistic representation of a cat, an abstraction. cute and small, friendly and kind, cat-like but with endless possibilities of looking any way and doing anything, living in an abstraction of reality where my existence is as fluid as art is. i'm also a boy

[shadowbrightshine]

Dillard's "Living Like Weasels" (1982) is the most furry thing I've ever read that wasn't written by an actual furry. This woman had a chance encounter with a weasel, and couldn't stop thinking about how she missed her chance to stay in that animal's mind and live under rose bushes as a weasel too. It's been a full week.

She is writing pages of description of the location and about weasels because she saw one for the first time and they stared at each other for a minute.

This feels so furry. It's so well done.

Very good. Very furry.

[miyrumiyru]

Endless stars in the tiny universe ★★✧✸

(M) Common Peacock - Spring adult (Papilio bianor)

영산홍 (Rhododendron indicum)

[knuppitalism-with-ue]

Another sketch brought to you by #paleostream

Rolfodon is a giant relative of the modern frilled shark, large enough to eat small or juvenile mosasaurs.

[madame-mongoose]

Wait have people not known Troodon has been an invalid species for a while now

[arthistoryanimalia]

Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer was born #OTD (South Africa, 24 February 1907 – 17 May 2004). She is best known for her key role in the 1938 rediscovery of the Coelacanth, a fish with a fossil record going back over 400 million years which was thought to have gone extinct during the K-Pg extinction event of 66 millions years ago.

Below are her original sketch and desciption of the specimen she recovered from a South African fishing boat's catch and did her best to preserve until the ichthyologist she was writing to, J. L. B. Smith (South African, 1897 - 1968) could arrive to identify it. He was indeed able to confirm it was the long-lost Coelacanth, and give the genus the scientific name Latimeria in her honor.

Here is a four-stamp set issued by South Africa in 1989 commemorating the event, designed by Sheila Nowers:

PS - the 1938 one is now known as the West Indian Ocean Coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae), as there was a SECOND living species confirmed in 1999, named the Indonesian Coelacanth (L. menadoensis). Its find was commemorated by Indonesia with this 2000 souvenir stamp sheet:

Here is a cool video about this amazing "Lazarus taxon" and Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer's key role in finding and perserving her now-famous specimen for science:

Animated Life: The Living Fossil Fish | HHMI BioInteractive Video