Rationality Quotes March 2012

Thomas

Here's the new thread for posting quotes, with the usual rules:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself
Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

Here's the new thread for posting quotes, with the usual rules:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself
Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

Humans are still apes according to any monophyletic definition of ape

I don't see why being monophyletic is the most relevant property of definitions.

Also, are you also going to attempt to argue that humans are fish?

There would be no point in defining fish monophyletically anyway, as it would then be just a synonym of craniates. (Also note that “apes, i.e. non-human hominoids, do not include humans” is a tautology but “fish, i.e. non-tetrapod craniates, do not include humans” is not.)

2alex_zag_al14y

The fish thing is irrelevant. If what makes bonobos and orangutans apes is that they share a common ancestor, then that also makes us an ape, since that's our ancestor too. Can't adapt that argument to fish, because descendants of the ancestor we share with fish are not generally called fish, the way descendants of the ancestor we share with orangutans are generally called apes.

5

Rationality Quotes March 2012

5

5

5

Rationality Quotes March 2012

5

5