(April 19, 2013 at 7:10 pm)Chuck Wrote:(April 19, 2013 at 6:31 pm)A_Nony_Mouse Wrote: Cute but ... Creationists are the ones who use the evolved from apes phrasing to mean modern apes. One has to address the invented misstatements not encourage them.
This is not just cute. It puts the question into meaningful context.
Fundamentally, even all but the most obtuse creationist must recognize that in principled it doesnn't matter whether the ape is modern. What matters in principle is "what is an ape".
There can be little scientific meaning in arbitrarily naming some characteristics as defining traits for determining what is an ape, and say if something had this but not that then it's an ape. Instead scientific system of classification traces and classifies according to the origin of derived traits in different species. You classify something by how they are related as revealed what sort of traits the animals in question has that clearly had common recent origins.
As it turns out, both modern anatomical evidence and fossil evidence shos that humans and modern ape belong to the same monophyletic group. That is to say any group which is defined by all the shared derived traits between modern apes and humans must also include the first animal in which these same share derived traits first arose.
If humans and apes evolved from a common ancester, but that ancester did not have all the traits which apes and humans share, them humans and apes would belong to a polyphyletic group. Fossils evidence suggests this is not the case.
So it is not just semantics. It goes to the nature of "what is an great ape".
Yes, yes, yes but ...
We had a question from a guy who may have lost some nooky for disagreement on this subject. He asked to simplify it, see OP and title of this thread. We do not help the man get laid by needlessly complicating the discussion.
That is particularly true when our entire quibble is over semantics. We do not disagree on the subject. We do disagree way to express it. Believe me, as a physicist I cringe at many of the statements in A Short History of Time yet I not attempt to explain why I cringe save in a forum where all the participants said they cringed too.
