There is no "first fish from which all fish derived".
Phylogenetic existence refers to the evolutionary history and relationships of a species as represented in a phylogenetic tree. This tree is a diagram that depicts the lines of evolutionary descent of different species, organisms, or genes from a common ancestor.
So monkeys are phylogenetically related, because all monkeys that we know have common ancestors.
Fish came to be multiple times independently. Being a fish, a tree, or a crab is a strategy, not a species.
Which is ironic because we call it the "tree of life", but it should be "forest of life" (but since life originated in the sea, it should be the "sea of life"), since trees don't have a single phylogenetic root: There wasn't a "first tree that all trees descend from": Things became trees independent of one another, because being treelike is beneficial early on, much like being fishlike and crablike.
a) There are fish. Sharks are fish. Trout are fish. So therefore humans are fish as we are more related to trout than we are to sharks. This is basically saying that "fish" is roughly the same as "any vertebrate" or "any vertebrate with teeth" (depending on where you draw the line).
or
b) There is no such thing as a fish. There are THREE things: sharks/rays, ray finned fishes, and lobed finned fishes (which includes humans)
There's no such thing as a fish, there's no such thing as a tree, there's no such thing as a vegetable, there's no such thing as a man, there's no such thing as a woman. Biology is weird and blurry and doesn't fit into well-defined groups
It’s occurred to me before (and I’m sure to someone thinking more seriously about it) that our way of categorizing organisms seems to be ultimately based on their origin, and not on something…more beneficial to the human experience, or more in-line with aesthetics and colors, or in some other way.
In other words, it is a deliberate choice to “taxonomize” organisms by their origins, and not by some other thing. This seems like an assumption that no one really questions, and I wonder if it ultimately leads to some unforeseen problems, or at least a view of the world that’s less than true or optimal for human flourishing.
I initially thought this was a criticism of phylogenetic trees (the mathematical object) rather than whether trees (the kind of plant) exist phylogenetically! Much less radical than I was expecting.
I'm a sucker for these kinds of discussions. Evolution is way messier than you think it is, and evolutionary biologists get really heated about clades vs grades and so on and so forth. For fun, spend some time on the r/evolution and r/biology subreddits and you'll occasionally run into one of these heated debates. One of my favourites:
If you ever meet an evolutionary biologist at a party, ask them if apes are monkeys. I think the closest thing for a Web developer like myself would be casually dropping into conversation the comment that "an Englishman invented the Internet".
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 32.5 ms ] threadThings became fish multiple times independently.
There is no "first fish from which all fish derived".
Phylogenetic existence refers to the evolutionary history and relationships of a species as represented in a phylogenetic tree. This tree is a diagram that depicts the lines of evolutionary descent of different species, organisms, or genes from a common ancestor.
So monkeys are phylogenetically related, because all monkeys that we know have common ancestors.
Fish came to be multiple times independently. Being a fish, a tree, or a crab is a strategy, not a species.
Which is ironic because we call it the "tree of life", but it should be "forest of life" (but since life originated in the sea, it should be the "sea of life"), since trees don't have a single phylogenetic root: There wasn't a "first tree that all trees descend from": Things became trees independent of one another, because being treelike is beneficial early on, much like being fishlike and crablike.
a) There are fish. Sharks are fish. Trout are fish. So therefore humans are fish as we are more related to trout than we are to sharks. This is basically saying that "fish" is roughly the same as "any vertebrate" or "any vertebrate with teeth" (depending on where you draw the line).
or
b) There is no such thing as a fish. There are THREE things: sharks/rays, ray finned fishes, and lobed finned fishes (which includes humans)
That's the joke in the name of the British show.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35081277
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29621646
In other words, it is a deliberate choice to “taxonomize” organisms by their origins, and not by some other thing. This seems like an assumption that no one really questions, and I wonder if it ultimately leads to some unforeseen problems, or at least a view of the world that’s less than true or optimal for human flourishing.
Hmm. This is a circular definition. You need to invoke tree to define leaves and wood.
https://www.reddit.com/r/evolution/comments/o6yja1/serious_a...
If you ever meet an evolutionary biologist at a party, ask them if apes are monkeys. I think the closest thing for a Web developer like myself would be casually dropping into conversation the comment that "an Englishman invented the Internet".