On 9/30/22 5:36 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Thursday, September 29, 2022 at 3:50:38 PM UTC-4, John Harshman
> wrote:
>> On 9/29/22 10:03 AM, Glenn wrote:
>>> On Wednesday, September 28, 2022 at 6:42:16 PM UTC-7, John
>>> Harshman
wrote:
>
>>>> Incidentally, have you read any of Glenn's recent production?
>>>
>>> If you are interested in seeing gains of entries on the subject,
let's start somewhere, How about here?
>>>
>
> I prefer to start here:, same reference as below, where I continue at
> tra:
>
> "It's quite uncontroversial that there are no lagerstätten of
comparable preservation to the Chengjiang known for the Ediacaran or
early Cambrian before the Chengjiang."
> [same reference as Glenn's below]
>
> That was you talking, John. Did you forget about the Newfoundland
lagerstätten with their exquisite
> fossils of rangeomorphs?

Not comparable preservation. Different sorts of things are preserved in
different preservational regimes.

See Butterfield N.J. Secular distribution of Burgess-Shale-type
preservation. Lethaia 1995; 28:1-13.

This is off-topic.

>>> "How can anyone be at once so condescendingly smug and so
>>> mindlessly
wrong? Oh yeah: he's an IDiot."
>>>
>>> https://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2013/07/idiot-irony.html
>
> That is pure *argumentum ad hominem*, but it is nothing compared to
the condescendingly smug
> article by Moran, which is one solid mass of *ad hominems* with not
> a
single attempt to refute
> anything the "IDiot" Luskin says in the linked article.

This too is off-topic. But since you mention it, that wasn't an ad
hominem argument. It wasn't an argument at all. It was an opinion based
on reading Berlinski's thing.

> Luskin warmed up nicely with: "As I showed in a previous response to
> Matzke, Matzke repeatedly
misquoted Meyer, at one point claiming he referred to the Cambrian
explosion as “instantaneous,” when Meyer nowhere makes that claim."
> https://evolutionnews.org/2013/07/how_sudden_was_/
>
> There is a link to the "previous response":
> https://evolutionnews.org/2013/06/rush_to_judgmen/
>
> There is a lot of stem group talk there, which indicates that you
> are
blindly
> relying on Matzke in a bizarre response to my question,
>
> Just what do you mean by "intermediates"?

This has nothing to do with Matzke or Luskin or Berlinski or Moran.

> You never gave anything like a definition, but went into a spiel
> about lobopods being "stem-members of different ecdysozoan phyla" and
> another comment which I critiqued as follows:

Do we really need a definition of "intermediate"? OK, sure: an
intermediate fossil has either a combination of primitive and derived
character states or intermediate character states or some of both. Stem
taxa commonly display such states.

What's your definition of intermediate?

> [begin repost]
>> Halkieriids and/or tommotiids may (i.e., less certainly) be
stem-lophotrochozoans.
>
> IOW, they may be outside the crown group of all lophotrochozoans. The
> following analogy comes to mind: the Sparassodonta, a clade which
> includes the formidable saber-tooth Thylacosmilus, are
> stem-marsupials. But no paleontologist would claim that they shed any
> light on the relationship between marsupials and eutherians, or
> between the various (crown) marsupial orders. [end repost] from
>
https://groups.google.com/g/sci.bio.paleontology/c/OpvUV-GjX0g/m/nPHcf7WKAAAJ
> Re: Deep diversity in Lophotrochozoa.
>
> Your lame response to that was: "They might help, though, if they
> show what characters are primitive
for the clade."
>
> Here, you forgot a fundamental slogan of cladists, formulated
> decades
ago: plesimorphies are
> useless for establishing relationships.

But they aren't, exactly. Every plesiomorphy is a synapomorphy of a
larger group and can show that the taxon in question is a member of that
larger group.

> And so you completely lost sight of my question, Just what do you
> mean by "intermediates"?
>
>
> Meyer spends something like 20 pages of DD 2nd edition critiquing
this use of stem taxa,
> beginning on p. 418 where he quotes Matzke as saying:
>
> "Meyer never presents for his readers...the fact that stem taxa are
the transitional fossils the creationists are allegedly looking for"
>
> You seemed to be mindlessly aping this with the following statement
> on
the same thread:
>
> "And these are all the animals Steven Meyer and the creationists
> claim
don't exist."

I haven't seen this second edition, nor does anything I've said here
have anything to do with Matzke. But how does Meyer deal with that
criticism?

> Unfortunately, Meyer's knowledge of paleontology is too narrow for
> himto give an example like the one I gave, which would have
> illuminated the tedious 20 pages.
> The same applies to Luskin's briefer treatment.
>
>
>>> Never mind that Berlinski is far from mindless, you appear to
>>> thinkof yourself as being 'right" and so not condescending or
>>> smug, when you call someone who isn't even part of the
>>> conversation an "IDiot" - and without any support!

>>> The irony, it burns. You.
>> Obviously you haven't read the blog post that quote mine of me is
>> referring to. Nor have you read the context on Sandwalk, in which
>> it's explained how mindless Berlinski's post is, notably on the
>> meaning of rotated branches on cladograms. I'm guessing you would
>> not be capable of understanding how stupid that post is, even when
>> it was explained to you in detail. But who knows?
>
> Glenn isn't big on details, but that's where the devil is. On the
> other hand, he sees cherry-pickings easily.
You mean he does cherry-picking easily, as he just inserted a single
sentence of mine, cherry-picked from a longer discussion and irrelevant
to anything here. And so we're off on a long, irrelevant digression.

>> And maybe Peter would be capable.
>
> There's no "maybe" about it.

You mean you are capable of understanding how stupid that post is?

>> But here's a link:
>> https://evolutionnews.org/2013/07/a_one_man_clade/
>>
>> The rotational bit is fairly far down the page. If anyone needs an
>> explanation of its sheer stupidity, I would be willing to supply
>> one.
>
> I don't know why Berlinski thought that the rotation made a
> difference in the sheer stupidity that EITHER diagram showed A to be
> ancestral to B, or B to be ancestral to C. It's as idiotic as using
> cladograms to deduce that Thylacosmilus is ancestral to any (crown
> group) marsupial. [see the analogy above]

Now that's a fine example of sea-lioning. You attempt to distract from
Berlinski's clueless claims by pointing at what Berlinski imagined to be
someone else's clueless claims.

> And that was Berlinski's point all along: you cannot infer ancestry
from cladograms.
>
>
>> As usual, I ask if you had a point to make and if so what it was.
>
> I have one: you cherry-picked the rotation as a sample of
> Berlinski's
mental caliber.
> Clue: there is a reason why "The rotational bit is fairly far down
> the
page."

I cherry-picked nothing. That was the subject of the discussion at
Sandwalk. I asked a question about it, I was informed of what was said,
I looked, and yep that's what he said. Now, if you would like to start a
new thread for a discussion of Berlinski's article, feel free.

On Friday, September 30, 2022 at 1:47:54 PM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote:
> On 9/30/22 5:36 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Thursday, September 29, 2022 at 3:50:38 PM UTC-4, John Harshman
> > wrote:
> >> On 9/29/22 10:03 AM, Glenn wrote:
> >>> On Wednesday, September 28, 2022 at 6:42:16 PM UTC-7, John
> >>> Harshman
> wrote:
> >
> >>>> Incidentally, have you read any of Glenn's recent production?
> >>>
> >>> If you are interested in seeing gains of entries on the subject,
> let's start somewhere, How about here?
> >>>
> >
> > I prefer to start here:, same reference as below, where I continue at
> > tra:
> >
> > "It's quite uncontroversial that there are no lagerstätten of
> comparable preservation to the Chengjiang known for the Ediacaran or
> early Cambrian before the Chengjiang."
> > [same reference as Glenn's below]
> >
> > That was you talking, John. Did you forget about the Newfoundland
> lagerstätten with their exquisite
> > fossils of rangeomorphs?
> Not comparable preservation. Different sorts of things are preserved in
> different preservational regimes.
>
> See Butterfield N.J. Secular distribution of Burgess-Shale-type
> preservation. Lethaia 1995; 28:1-13.
>
> This is off-topic.
> >>> "How can anyone be at once so condescendingly smug and so
> >>> mindlessly
> wrong? Oh yeah: he's an IDiot."
> >>>
> >>> https://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2013/07/idiot-irony.html
> >
> > That is pure *argumentum ad hominem*, but it is nothing compared to
> the condescendingly smug
> > article by Moran, which is one solid mass of *ad hominems* with not
> > a
> single attempt to refute
> > anything the "IDiot" Luskin says in the linked article.
> This too is off-topic. But since you mention it, that wasn't an ad
> hominem argument. It wasn't an argument at all. It was an opinion based
> on reading Berlinski's thing.
> > Luskin warmed up nicely with: "As I showed in a previous response to
> > Matzke, Matzke repeatedly
> misquoted Meyer, at one point claiming he referred to the Cambrian
> explosion as “instantaneous,” when Meyer nowhere makes that claim."
> > https://evolutionnews.org/2013/07/how_sudden_was_/
> >
> > There is a link to the "previous response":
> > https://evolutionnews.org/2013/06/rush_to_judgmen/
> >
> > There is a lot of stem group talk there, which indicates that you
> > are
> blindly
> > relying on Matzke in a bizarre response to my question,
> >
> > Just what do you mean by "intermediates"?
> This has nothing to do with Matzke or Luskin or Berlinski or Moran.
> > You never gave anything like a definition, but went into a spiel
> > about lobopods being "stem-members of different ecdysozoan phyla" and
> > another comment which I critiqued as follows:
> Do we really need a definition of "intermediate"? OK, sure: an
> intermediate fossil has either a combination of primitive and derived
> character states or intermediate character states or some of both. Stem
> taxa commonly display such states.
>
> What's your definition of intermediate?
> > [begin repost]
> >> Halkieriids and/or tommotiids may (i.e., less certainly) be
> stem-lophotrochozoans.
> >
> > IOW, they may be outside the crown group of all lophotrochozoans. The
> > following analogy comes to mind: the Sparassodonta, a clade which
> > includes the formidable saber-tooth Thylacosmilus, are
> > stem-marsupials. But no paleontologist would claim that they shed any
> > light on the relationship between marsupials and eutherians, or
> > between the various (crown) marsupial orders. [end repost] from
> >
> https://groups.google.com/g/sci.bio.paleontology/c/OpvUV-GjX0g/m/nPHcf7WKAAAJ
> > Re: Deep diversity in Lophotrochozoa.
> >
> > Your lame response to that was: "They might help, though, if they
> > show what characters are primitive
> for the clade."
> >
> > Here, you forgot a fundamental slogan of cladists, formulated
> > decades
> ago: plesimorphies are
> > useless for establishing relationships.
> But they aren't, exactly. Every plesiomorphy is a synapomorphy of a
> larger group and can show that the taxon in question is a member of that
> larger group.
> > And so you completely lost sight of my question, Just what do you
> > mean by "intermediates"?
> >
> >
> > Meyer spends something like 20 pages of DD 2nd edition critiquing
> this use of stem taxa,
> > beginning on p. 418 where he quotes Matzke as saying:
> >
> > "Meyer never presents for his readers...the fact that stem taxa are
> the transitional fossils the creationists are allegedly looking for"
> >
> > You seemed to be mindlessly aping this with the following statement
> > on
> the same thread:
> >
> > "And these are all the animals Steven Meyer and the creationists
> > claim
> don't exist."
> I haven't seen this second edition, nor does anything I've said here
> have anything to do with Matzke. But how does Meyer deal with that
> criticism?
> > Unfortunately, Meyer's knowledge of paleontology is too narrow for
> > himto give an example like the one I gave, which would have
> > illuminated the tedious 20 pages.
> > The same applies to Luskin's briefer treatment.
> >
> >
> >>> Never mind that Berlinski is far from mindless, you appear to
> >>> thinkof yourself as being 'right" and so not condescending or
> >>> smug, when you call someone who isn't even part of the
> >>> conversation an "IDiot" - and without any support!
>
> >>> The irony, it burns. You.
> >> Obviously you haven't read the blog post that quote mine of me is
> >> referring to. Nor have you read the context on Sandwalk, in which
> >> it's explained how mindless Berlinski's post is, notably on the
> >> meaning of rotated branches on cladograms. I'm guessing you would
> >> not be capable of understanding how stupid that post is, even when
> >> it was explained to you in detail. But who knows?
> >
> > Glenn isn't big on details, but that's where the devil is. On the
> > other hand, he sees cherry-pickings easily.
> You mean he does cherry-picking easily, as he just inserted a single
> sentence of mine, cherry-picked from a longer discussion and irrelevant
> to anything here. And so we're off on a long, irrelevant digression.
> >> And maybe Peter would be capable.
> >
> > There's no "maybe" about it.
> You mean you are capable of understanding how stupid that post is?
> >> But here's a link:
> >> https://evolutionnews.org/2013/07/a_one_man_clade/
> >>
> >> The rotational bit is fairly far down the page. If anyone needs an
> >> explanation of its sheer stupidity, I would be willing to supply
> >> one.
> >
> > I don't know why Berlinski thought that the rotation made a
> > difference in the sheer stupidity that EITHER diagram showed A to be
> > ancestral to B, or B to be ancestral to C. It's as idiotic as using
> > cladograms to deduce that Thylacosmilus is ancestral to any (crown
> > group) marsupial. [see the analogy above]
> Now that's a fine example of sea-lioning. You attempt to distract from
> Berlinski's clueless claims by pointing at what Berlinski imagined to be
> someone else's clueless claims.
> > And that was Berlinski's point all along: you cannot infer ancestry
> from cladograms.
> >
> >
> >> As usual, I ask if you had a point to make and if so what it was.
> >
> > I have one: you cherry-picked the rotation as a sample of
> > Berlinski's
> mental caliber.
> > Clue: there is a reason why "The rotational bit is fairly far down
> > the
> page."
> I cherry-picked nothing. That was the subject of the discussion at
> Sandwalk. I asked a question about it, I was informed of what was said,
> I looked, and yep that's what he said. Now, if you would like to start a
> new thread for a discussion of Berlinski's article, feel free.

On Friday, September 30, 2022 at 1:47:54 PM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote:
> On 9/30/22 5:36 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Thursday, September 29, 2022 at 3:50:38 PM UTC-4, John Harshman
> > wrote:
> >> On 9/29/22 10:03 AM, Glenn wrote:
> >>> On Wednesday, September 28, 2022 at 6:42:16 PM UTC-7, John
> >>> Harshman
> wrote:
> >
> >>>> Incidentally, have you read any of Glenn's recent production?
> >>>
> >>> If you are interested in seeing gains of entries on the subject,
> let's start somewhere, How about here?
> >>>
> >
> > I prefer to start here:, same reference as below, where I continue at
> > tra:
> >
> > "It's quite uncontroversial that there are no lagerstätten of
> comparable preservation to the Chengjiang known for the Ediacaran or
> early Cambrian before the Chengjiang."
> > [same reference as Glenn's below]
> >
> > That was you talking, John. Did you forget about the Newfoundland
> lagerstätten with their exquisite
> > fossils of rangeomorphs?
> Not comparable preservation. Different sorts of things are preserved in
> different preservational regimes.
>
> See Butterfield N.J. Secular distribution of Burgess-Shale-type
> preservation. Lethaia 1995; 28:1-13.
>
> This is off-topic.
> >>> "How can anyone be at once so condescendingly smug and so
> >>> mindlessly
> wrong? Oh yeah: he's an IDiot."
> >>>
> >>> https://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2013/07/idiot-irony.html
> >
> > That is pure *argumentum ad hominem*, but it is nothing compared to
> the condescendingly smug
> > article by Moran, which is one solid mass of *ad hominems* with not
> > a
> single attempt to refute
> > anything the "IDiot" Luskin says in the linked article.
> This too is off-topic. But since you mention it, that wasn't an ad
> hominem argument. It wasn't an argument at all. It was an opinion based
> on reading Berlinski's thing.
> > Luskin warmed up nicely with: "As I showed in a previous response to
> > Matzke, Matzke repeatedly
> misquoted Meyer, at one point claiming he referred to the Cambrian
> explosion as “instantaneous,” when Meyer nowhere makes that claim."
> > https://evolutionnews.org/2013/07/how_sudden_was_/
> >
> > There is a link to the "previous response":
> > https://evolutionnews.org/2013/06/rush_to_judgmen/
> >
> > There is a lot of stem group talk there, which indicates that you
> > are
> blindly
> > relying on Matzke in a bizarre response to my question,
> >
> > Just what do you mean by "intermediates"?
> This has nothing to do with Matzke or Luskin or Berlinski or Moran.
> > You never gave anything like a definition, but went into a spiel
> > about lobopods being "stem-members of different ecdysozoan phyla" and
> > another comment which I critiqued as follows:
> Do we really need a definition of "intermediate"? OK, sure: an
> intermediate fossil has either a combination of primitive and derived
> character states or intermediate character states or some of both. Stem
> taxa commonly display such states.
>
> What's your definition of intermediate?
> > [begin repost]
> >> Halkieriids and/or tommotiids may (i.e., less certainly) be
> stem-lophotrochozoans.
> >
> > IOW, they may be outside the crown group of all lophotrochozoans. The
> > following analogy comes to mind: the Sparassodonta, a clade which
> > includes the formidable saber-tooth Thylacosmilus, are
> > stem-marsupials. But no paleontologist would claim that they shed any
> > light on the relationship between marsupials and eutherians, or
> > between the various (crown) marsupial orders. [end repost] from
> >
> https://groups.google.com/g/sci.bio.paleontology/c/OpvUV-GjX0g/m/nPHcf7WKAAAJ
> > Re: Deep diversity in Lophotrochozoa.
> >
> > Your lame response to that was: "They might help, though, if they
> > show what characters are primitive
> for the clade."
> >
> > Here, you forgot a fundamental slogan of cladists, formulated
> > decades
> ago: plesimorphies are
> > useless for establishing relationships.
> But they aren't, exactly. Every plesiomorphy is a synapomorphy of a
> larger group and can show that the taxon in question is a member of that
> larger group.
> > And so you completely lost sight of my question, Just what do you
> > mean by "intermediates"?
> >
> >
> > Meyer spends something like 20 pages of DD 2nd edition critiquing
> this use of stem taxa,
> > beginning on p. 418 where he quotes Matzke as saying:
> >
> > "Meyer never presents for his readers...the fact that stem taxa are
> the transitional fossils the creationists are allegedly looking for"
> >
> > You seemed to be mindlessly aping this with the following statement
> > on
> the same thread:
> >
> > "And these are all the animals Steven Meyer and the creationists
> > claim
> don't exist."
> I haven't seen this second edition, nor does anything I've said here
> have anything to do with Matzke. But how does Meyer deal with that
> criticism?
> > Unfortunately, Meyer's knowledge of paleontology is too narrow for
> > himto give an example like the one I gave, which would have
> > illuminated the tedious 20 pages.
> > The same applies to Luskin's briefer treatment.
> >
> >
> >>> Never mind that Berlinski is far from mindless, you appear to
> >>> thinkof yourself as being 'right" and so not condescending or
> >>> smug, when you call someone who isn't even part of the
> >>> conversation an "IDiot" - and without any support!
>
> >>> The irony, it burns. You.
> >> Obviously you haven't read the blog post that quote mine of me is
> >> referring to. Nor have you read the context on Sandwalk, in which
> >> it's explained how mindless Berlinski's post is, notably on the
> >> meaning of rotated branches on cladograms. I'm guessing you would
> >> not be capable of understanding how stupid that post is, even when
> >> it was explained to you in detail. But who knows?
> >
> > Glenn isn't big on details, but that's where the devil is. On the
> > other hand, he sees cherry-pickings easily.
> You mean he does cherry-picking easily, as he just inserted a single
> sentence of mine, cherry-picked from a longer discussion and irrelevant
> to anything here. And so we're off on a long, irrelevant digression.
> >> And maybe Peter would be capable.
> >
> > There's no "maybe" about it.
> You mean you are capable of understanding how stupid that post is?
> >> But here's a link:
> >> https://evolutionnews.org/2013/07/a_one_man_clade/
> >>
> >> The rotational bit is fairly far down the page. If anyone needs an
> >> explanation of its sheer stupidity, I would be willing to supply
> >> one.
> >
> > I don't know why Berlinski thought that the rotation made a
> > difference in the sheer stupidity that EITHER diagram showed A to be
> > ancestral to B, or B to be ancestral to C. It's as idiotic as using
> > cladograms to deduce that Thylacosmilus is ancestral to any (crown
> > group) marsupial. [see the analogy above]
> Now that's a fine example of sea-lioning. You attempt to distract from
> Berlinski's clueless claims by pointing at what Berlinski imagined to be
> someone else's clueless claims.
> > And that was Berlinski's point all along: you cannot infer ancestry
> from cladograms.
> >
> >
> >> As usual, I ask if you had a point to make and if so what it was.
> >
> > I have one: you cherry-picked the rotation as a sample of
> > Berlinski's
> mental caliber.
> > Clue: there is a reason why "The rotational bit is fairly far down
> > the
> page."
> I cherry-picked nothing. That was the subject of the discussion at
> Sandwalk. I asked a question about it, I was informed of what was said,
> I looked, and yep that's what he said. Now, if you would like to start a
> new thread for a discussion of Berlinski's article, feel free.

On Friday, September 30, 2022 at 3:11:43 PM UTC-7, erik simpson wrote:
> On Friday, September 30, 2022 at 1:47:54 PM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote:
> > On 9/30/22 5:36 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > On Thursday, September 29, 2022 at 3:50:38 PM UTC-4, John Harshman
> > > wrote:
> > >> On 9/29/22 10:03 AM, Glenn wrote:
> > >>> On Wednesday, September 28, 2022 at 6:42:16 PM UTC-7, John
> > >>> Harshman
> > wrote:
> > >
> > >>>> Incidentally, have you read any of Glenn's recent production?
> > >>>
> > >>> If you are interested in seeing gains of entries on the subject,
> > let's start somewhere, How about here?
> > >>>
> > >
> > > I prefer to start here:, same reference as below, where I continue at
> > > tra:
> > >
> > > "It's quite uncontroversial that there are no lagerstätten of
> > comparable preservation to the Chengjiang known for the Ediacaran or
> > early Cambrian before the Chengjiang."
> > > [same reference as Glenn's below]
> > >
> > > That was you talking, John. Did you forget about the Newfoundland
> > lagerstätten with their exquisite
> > > fossils of rangeomorphs?
> > Not comparable preservation. Different sorts of things are preserved in
> > different preservational regimes.
> >
> > See Butterfield N.J. Secular distribution of Burgess-Shale-type
> > preservation. Lethaia 1995; 28:1-13.
> >
> > This is off-topic.
> > >>> "How can anyone be at once so condescendingly smug and so
> > >>> mindlessly
> > wrong? Oh yeah: he's an IDiot."
> > >>>
> > >>> https://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2013/07/idiot-irony.html
> > >
> > > That is pure *argumentum ad hominem*, but it is nothing compared to
> > the condescendingly smug
> > > article by Moran, which is one solid mass of *ad hominems* with not
> > > a
> > single attempt to refute
> > > anything the "IDiot" Luskin says in the linked article.
> > This too is off-topic. But since you mention it, that wasn't an ad
> > hominem argument. It wasn't an argument at all. It was an opinion based
> > on reading Berlinski's thing.
> > > Luskin warmed up nicely with: "As I showed in a previous response to
> > > Matzke, Matzke repeatedly
> > misquoted Meyer, at one point claiming he referred to the Cambrian
> > explosion as “instantaneous,” when Meyer nowhere makes that claim."
> > > https://evolutionnews.org/2013/07/how_sudden_was_/
> > >
> > > There is a link to the "previous response":
> > > https://evolutionnews.org/2013/06/rush_to_judgmen/
> > >
> > > There is a lot of stem group talk there, which indicates that you
> > > are
> > blindly
> > > relying on Matzke in a bizarre response to my question,
> > >
> > > Just what do you mean by "intermediates"?
> > This has nothing to do with Matzke or Luskin or Berlinski or Moran.
> > > You never gave anything like a definition, but went into a spiel
> > > about lobopods being "stem-members of different ecdysozoan phyla" and
> > > another comment which I critiqued as follows:
> > Do we really need a definition of "intermediate"? OK, sure: an
> > intermediate fossil has either a combination of primitive and derived
> > character states or intermediate character states or some of both. Stem
> > taxa commonly display such states.
> >
> > What's your definition of intermediate?
> > > [begin repost]
> > >> Halkieriids and/or tommotiids may (i.e., less certainly) be
> > stem-lophotrochozoans.
> > >
> > > IOW, they may be outside the crown group of all lophotrochozoans. The
> > > following analogy comes to mind: the Sparassodonta, a clade which
> > > includes the formidable saber-tooth Thylacosmilus, are
> > > stem-marsupials. But no paleontologist would claim that they shed any
> > > light on the relationship between marsupials and eutherians, or
> > > between the various (crown) marsupial orders. [end repost] from
> > >
> > https://groups.google.com/g/sci.bio.paleontology/c/OpvUV-GjX0g/m/nPHcf7WKAAAJ
> > > Re: Deep diversity in Lophotrochozoa.
> > >
> > > Your lame response to that was: "They might help, though, if they
> > > show what characters are primitive
> > for the clade."
> > >
> > > Here, you forgot a fundamental slogan of cladists, formulated
> > > decades
> > ago: plesimorphies are
> > > useless for establishing relationships.
> > But they aren't, exactly. Every plesiomorphy is a synapomorphy of a
> > larger group and can show that the taxon in question is a member of that
> > larger group.
> > > And so you completely lost sight of my question, Just what do you
> > > mean by "intermediates"?
> > >
> > >
> > > Meyer spends something like 20 pages of DD 2nd edition critiquing
> > this use of stem taxa,
> > > beginning on p. 418 where he quotes Matzke as saying:
> > >
> > > "Meyer never presents for his readers...the fact that stem taxa are
> > the transitional fossils the creationists are allegedly looking for"
> > >
> > > You seemed to be mindlessly aping this with the following statement
> > > on
> > the same thread:
> > >
> > > "And these are all the animals Steven Meyer and the creationists
> > > claim
> > don't exist."
> > I haven't seen this second edition, nor does anything I've said here
> > have anything to do with Matzke. But how does Meyer deal with that
> > criticism?
> > > Unfortunately, Meyer's knowledge of paleontology is too narrow for
> > > himto give an example like the one I gave, which would have
> > > illuminated the tedious 20 pages.
> > > The same applies to Luskin's briefer treatment.
> > >
> > >
> > >>> Never mind that Berlinski is far from mindless, you appear to
> > >>> thinkof yourself as being 'right" and so not condescending or
> > >>> smug, when you call someone who isn't even part of the
> > >>> conversation an "IDiot" - and without any support!
> >
> > >>> The irony, it burns. You.
> > >> Obviously you haven't read the blog post that quote mine of me is
> > >> referring to. Nor have you read the context on Sandwalk, in which
> > >> it's explained how mindless Berlinski's post is, notably on the
> > >> meaning of rotated branches on cladograms. I'm guessing you would
> > >> not be capable of understanding how stupid that post is, even when
> > >> it was explained to you in detail. But who knows?
> > >
> > > Glenn isn't big on details, but that's where the devil is. On the
> > > other hand, he sees cherry-pickings easily.
> > You mean he does cherry-picking easily, as he just inserted a single
> > sentence of mine, cherry-picked from a longer discussion and irrelevant
> > to anything here. And so we're off on a long, irrelevant digression.
> > >> And maybe Peter would be capable.
> > >
> > > There's no "maybe" about it.
> > You mean you are capable of understanding how stupid that post is?
> > >> But here's a link:
> > >> https://evolutionnews.org/2013/07/a_one_man_clade/
> > >>
> > >> The rotational bit is fairly far down the page. If anyone needs an
> > >> explanation of its sheer stupidity, I would be willing to supply
> > >> one.
> > >
> > > I don't know why Berlinski thought that the rotation made a
> > > difference in the sheer stupidity that EITHER diagram showed A to be
> > > ancestral to B, or B to be ancestral to C. It's as idiotic as using
> > > cladograms to deduce that Thylacosmilus is ancestral to any (crown
> > > group) marsupial. [see the analogy above]
> > Now that's a fine example of sea-lioning. You attempt to distract from
> > Berlinski's clueless claims by pointing at what Berlinski imagined to be
> > someone else's clueless claims.
> > > And that was Berlinski's point all along: you cannot infer ancestry
> > from cladograms.
> > >
> > >
> > >> As usual, I ask if you had a point to make and if so what it was.
> > >
> > > I have one: you cherry-picked the rotation as a sample of
> > > Berlinski's
> > mental caliber.
> > > Clue: there is a reason why "The rotational bit is fairly far down
> > > the
> > page."
> > I cherry-picked nothing. That was the subject of the discussion at
> > Sandwalk. I asked a question about it, I was informed of what was said,
> > I looked, and yep that's what he said. Now, if you would like to start a
> > new thread for a discussion of Berlinski's article, feel free.
> I looked at the Berlinski reference, and noted that DI lauds him (among other things) as a
> "raconteur". Just to make sure I knew what that meant, I looked it up. Sure enough, it
> means he tells good stories. If that "one man clade" story is a characteristic
> example, DI is even more screwed up than I thought.
You mean if the "story" is an example of your idea of "raconteuring". Yours is not so good a story, Erik.
Berlinski "lauds" himself, as do others, as a raconteur, as well as other characterizations.
But you do an injustice to the word "raconteur", as you do to Berlinski.

On Friday, September 30, 2022 at 4:47:54 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
> On 9/30/22 5:36 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Thursday, September 29, 2022 at 3:50:38 PM UTC-4, John Harshman
> > wrote:
> >> On 9/29/22 10:03 AM, Glenn wrote:
> >>> On Wednesday, September 28, 2022 at 6:42:16 PM UTC-7, John
> >>> Harshman
> wrote:
> >
> >>>> Incidentally, have you read any of Glenn's recent production?
> >>>
> >>> If you are interested in seeing gains of entries on the subject, let's start somewhere, How about here?
> >>>
> >
> > I prefer to start here:, same reference as below, where I continue [later on].
> >
> > "It's quite uncontroversial that there are no lagerstätten of
> comparable preservation to the Chengjiang known for the Ediacaran or
> early Cambrian before the Chengjiang."
> > [same reference as Glenn's below]
> >
> > That was you talking, John. Did you forget about the Newfoundland lagerstätten with their exquisite
> > fossils of rangeomorphs?

> Not comparable preservation. Different sorts of things are preserved in
> different preservational regimes.
>
> See Butterfield N.J. Secular distribution of Burgess-Shale-type
> preservation. Lethaia 1995; 28:1-13.

Does it assert that volcanic ash at Mistaken Point does not preserve as fine detail
as the Burgess shale? Why not?

Both are listed along with the Chengjiang as Konservat-Lagerstätten:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagerst%C3%A4tte

>
> This is off-topic.

For what? certainly not for sci.bio.paleontology.

Is THIS what you think of as "on topic"?

> >>> "How can anyone be at once so condescendingly smug and so
> >>> mindlessly wrong? Oh yeah: he's an IDiot."

Are you man enough to admit that you were indulging in "trash talk" here?

> >>>
> >>> https://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2013/07/idiot-irony.html
> >
> > That is pure *argumentum ad hominem*, but it is nothing compared to
> the condescendingly smug
> > article by Moran, which is one solid mass of *ad hominems* with not a single attempt to refute
> > anything the "IDiot" Luskin says in the linked article.

> This too is off-topic.

Why? because you are enamored of an exchange you
had with Matzke that you wildly distorted below?

> But since you mention it, that wasn't an ad
> hominem argument. It wasn't an argument at all. It was an opinion based
> on reading Berlinski's thing.

A wretched opinion it was too.

<snip of things to be dealt with in a separate reply>

> >>> Never mind that Berlinski is far from mindless, you appear to
> >>> think of yourself as being 'right" and so not condescending or
> >>> smug, when you call someone who isn't even part of the
> >>> conversation an "IDiot" - and without any support!
>
> >>> The irony, it burns. You.

> >> Obviously you haven't read the blog post that quote mine of me is
> >> referring to. Nor have you read the context on Sandwalk,in which
> >> it's explained how mindless Berlinski's post is, notably on the
> >> meaning of rotated branches on cladograms.

Why "notably"? you seem to not want to talk about the rest of the "post"
(article) at the end of your post.

But the bottom line is, you are putting a huge spin on what Matzke told you.. See below,
where he talks about some simple mistakes students and some
biologists make in interpreting cladograms, and why rotations
can trip some up. Here is another on a slightly higher level.

If you look at the two cladograms Berlinski provides, the second makes it *look* like
there is a synapomorphy involving A and B, while the first makes
it look like there is a synapomorphy between A and a clade
in which B and C are synapomorphic. Perhaps neither is true,
but perhaps one interpretation is true and the other false.

The thing is, cladograms don't distinguish between a case where
two new species are formed, and the more common case
where a new species splits off from an old one while the
old one continues to be in stasis. This is right at the foundation of
Punctuated Equilibrium theory.

This may be why you dislike PE: it spoils the pretty "legal fiction"
of two new taxa coming off at each node.

But back to what Berlinski actually said. He was talking about
direct ancestry, and these were cladograms, not phylograms,
and so the first could really have A being ancestral to B,
if there were 0 apomorphies between A and the LCA of A and B.
But the second cladogram makes such a possibility look remote.

<snip for focus>

> >> But here's a link:
> >> https://evolutionnews.org/2013/07/a_one_man_clade/
> >>
> >> The rotational bit is fairly far down the page. If anyone needs an
> >> explanation of its sheer stupidity, I would be willing to supply
> >> one.

Please do, in a way that deals with what I wrote this time around.

> > I don't know why Berlinski thought that the rotation made a
> > difference in the sheer stupidity that EITHER diagram showed A to be
> > ancestral to B, or B to be ancestral to C. It's as idiotic as using
> > cladograms to deduce that Thylacosmilus is ancestral to any (crown
> > group) marsupial. [see the analogy above]

> Now that's a fine example of sea-lioning. You attempt to distract from
> Berlinski's clueless claims by pointing at what Berlinski imagined to be
> someone else's clueless claims.

Now there's a fine example of trash talk. There are lots of
ways to misread cladograms, and you are pretending that there is
"someone else" to whom Berlinski was referring when he was obviously
lecturing about one kind of misreading into which plenty of people could fall.

Matzke tried to make it clear to you that there are lots of people who fall into
misreadings of cladograms [see below], but you are ignoring that in order
to score worthless debating points against me and Berlinski.

> > And that was Berlinski's point all along: you cannot infer ancestry from cladograms.
> >
> >
> >> As usual, I ask if you had a point to make and if so what it was.
> >
> > I have one: you cherry-picked the rotation as a sample of
> > Berlinski's mental caliber.
> > Clue: there is a reason why "The rotational bit is fairly far down
> > the page."
> I cherry-picked nothing.

As jillery loves to say, that's a distinction without a difference.

You converted a tidbit that Matzke found "hilarious" into something quite different
with the comment that Glenn quoted from you.

> That was the subject of the discussion at Sandwalk.

How egocentric of you to talk about a tiny fragment of the comments
section, and nothing about Moran's article at all! And to pay so little
attention to what Matzke told you [see below].

> I asked a question about it,

About a comment by Matzke ("NickM") that mystified you,
and you had to ask twice about it. Matzke was
surprised that you weren't familiar with the old rotation business:

"Hi John -- I'm not getting what you're not getting. It is common for e.g. students (and certain sorts of insufficiently educated biologists) to misinterpret cladograms (usually upwards-pointing ones) by giving significance to the left-to-right order of the tips at the top."

Matzke may have been unaware of how little, if any, teaching
experience you have had on that level, but he went on to give you quite a long talk instead
of the misleading description that you are giving here:

> I was informed of what was said,
> I looked, and yep that's what he said.

> Now, if you would like to start a
> new thread for a discussion of Berlinski's article, feel free.

Feel free yourself, if you take your use of "notably" up there seriously.

I'd like for you to address "what he said" about the rotation,
instead of talking all around it.

Peter Nyikos

On 10/4/22 7:30 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Friday, September 30, 2022 at 4:47:54 PM UTC-4, John Harshman wrote:
>> On 9/30/22 5:36 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>> On Thursday, September 29, 2022 at 3:50:38 PM UTC-4, John Harshman
>>> wrote:
>>>> On 9/29/22 10:03 AM, Glenn wrote:
>>>>> On Wednesday, September 28, 2022 at 6:42:16 PM UTC-7, John
>>>>> Harshman
>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>>> Incidentally, have you read any of Glenn's recent production?
>>>>>
>>>>> If you are interested in seeing gains of entries on the subject, let's start somewhere, How about here?
>>>>>
>>>
>>> I prefer to start here:, same reference as below, where I continue [later on].
>>>
>>> "It's quite uncontroversial that there are no lagerstätten of
>> comparable preservation to the Chengjiang known for the Ediacaran or
>> early Cambrian before the Chengjiang."
>>> [same reference as Glenn's below]
>>>
>>> That was you talking, John. Did you forget about the Newfoundland lagerstätten with their exquisite
>>> fossils of rangeomorphs?
>
>> Not comparable preservation. Different sorts of things are preserved in
>> different preservational regimes.
>>
>> See Butterfield N.J. Secular distribution of Burgess-Shale-type
>> preservation. Lethaia 1995; 28:1-13.
>
> Does it assert that volcanic ash at Mistaken Point does not preserve as fine detail
> as the Burgess shale? Why not?

It's not a question of detail. Different preservation types preserve
different things. Burgess-type preservation is really good for taxa with
organic cuticles. Mistaken Point-type preserveration might not be.

> Both are listed along with the Chengjiang as Konservat-Lagerstätten:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagerst%C3%A4tte

You understand that different preservation regimes can preserve
different things, and that even Konservat-Lagerstätten differ in what
they preserve. I hope.

[snipping off-topic stuff]

> If you look at the two cladograms Berlinski provides, the second makes it *look* like
> there is a synapomorphy involving A and B, while the first makes
> it look like there is a synapomorphy between A and a clade
> in which B and C are synapomorphic. Perhaps neither is true,
> but perhaps one interpretation is true and the other false.

Berlinski provides three cladograms, not two, and none of them makes
anything look like what you describe, so it isn't clear what you're
talking about. Nobody does what Berlinski describes, and there is no
implication that the left to right orientation of terminal taxa means
anything.

> The thing is, cladograms don't distinguish between a case where
> two new species are formed, and the more common case
> where a new species splits off from an old one while the
> old one continues to be in stasis. This is right at the foundation of
> Punctuated Equilibrium theory.

You have no evidence that your scenario is more common than otherwise.
If a case were as you describe, it would of course show up on a
phylogram as a zero-length terminal branch. Cladograms of course have
meaningless branch lengths, so you're right that the scenario wouldn't
show up. But what does that have to do with Berlinski's bizarre
understanding?

> This may be why you dislike PE: it spoils the pretty "legal fiction"
> of two new taxa coming off at each node.

Please stop your groundless speculations regarding my motives.

> But back to what Berlinski actually said. He was talking about
> direct ancestry, and these were cladograms, not phylograms,
> and so the first could really have A being ancestral to B,
> if there were 0 apomorphies between A and the LCA of A and B.
> But the second cladogram makes such a possibility look remote.

If you think so, you are as confused as Berlinski. I think now that you
are comparing the second and third cladograms. But to a person who can
actually read them, they convey identical information. One possible
interpretation of any cladogram is that a terminal branch is of zero
length. But since in each cladogram the same branches descend from the
same internal nodes, such an interpretation would lead to the same paths
of ancestry. There is by no stretch of imagination any other than a
meaningless graphic difference between those two trees. I am not seeing
how you could understand otherwise.

> <snip for focus>
>
>>>> But here's a link:
>>>> https://evolutionnews.org/2013/07/a_one_man_clade/
>>>>
>>>> The rotational bit is fairly far down the page. If anyone needs an
>>>> explanation of its sheer stupidity, I would be willing to supply
>>>> one.
>
> Please do, in a way that deals with what I wrote this time around.

I have, above. Again, the implications you and Berlinski get from
rotating branches are illusions caused by misunderstanding what
cladograms show.

>>> I don't know why Berlinski thought that the rotation made a
>>> difference in the sheer stupidity that EITHER diagram showed A to be
>>> ancestral to B, or B to be ancestral to C. It's as idiotic as using
>>> cladograms to deduce that Thylacosmilus is ancestral to any (crown
>>> group) marsupial. [see the analogy above]
>
>> Now that's a fine example of sea-lioning. You attempt to distract from
>> Berlinski's clueless claims by pointing at what Berlinski imagined to be
>> someone else's clueless claims.
>
> Now there's a fine example of trash talk. There are lots of
> ways to misread cladograms, and you are pretending that there is
> "someone else" to whom Berlinski was referring when he was obviously
> lecturing about one kind of misreading into which plenty of people could fall.

Note that he doesn't present any examples of a real person doing that
misreading. And he implies that evolutionary biologists themselves
misread their trees.

> Matzke tried to make it clear to you that there are lots of people who fall into
> misreadings of cladograms [see below], but you are ignoring that in order
> to score worthless debating points against me and Berlinski.

Lots of people, including Berlinski and, perhaps, you. But not the
people Berlinski was attacking.

On Friday, September 30, 2022 at 6:11:43 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> On Friday, September 30, 2022 at 1:47:54 PM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote:
> > On 9/30/22 5:36 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > On Thursday, September 29, 2022 at 3:50:38 PM UTC-4, John Harshman
> > > wrote:
> > >> On 9/29/22 10:03 AM, Glenn wrote:
> > >>> On Wednesday, September 28, 2022 at 6:42:16 PM UTC-7, John
> > >>> Harshman
> > wrote:
> > >
> > >>>> Incidentally, have you read any of Glenn's recent production?
> > >>>
> > >>> If you are interested in seeing gains of entries on the subject,
> > let's start somewhere, How about here?
<snip of things I dealt with in my reply to Harshman>

> > >>> "How can anyone be at once so condescendingly smug and so
> > >>> mindlessly
> > wrong? Oh yeah: he's an IDiot."
> > >>>
> > >>> https://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2013/07/idiot-irony.html
> > >
> > > That is pure *argumentum ad hominem*, but it is nothing compared to
> > the condescendingly smug
> > > article by Moran, which is one solid mass of *ad hominems* with not
> > > a single attempt to refute
> > > anything the "IDiot" Luskin says in the linked article.

> > This too is off-topic.

The egocentric Harshman ignored what I wrote about Moran, but
that is not obvious from his next two sentences; only from the third.

> > But since you mention it, that wasn't an ad
> > hominem argument. It wasn't an argument at all. It was an opinion based
> > on reading Berlinski's thing.

<snip of things to be dealt with in separate reply to John's post>

> > >
> > >>> Never mind that Berlinski is far from mindless, you appear to
> > >>> thinkof yourself as being 'right" and so not condescending or
> > >>> smug, when you call someone who isn't even part of the
> > >>> conversation an "IDiot" - and without any support!
> >
> > >>> The irony, it burns. You.

<snip of things to be dealt with in separate reply to John's post>

> > >> But here's a link:
> > >> https://evolutionnews.org/2013/07/a_one_man_clade/
> > >>
> > >> The rotational bit is fairly far down the page. If anyone needs an
> > >> explanation of its sheer stupidity, I would be willing to supply
> > >> one.

<snip of things dealt with in my reply to John yesterday evening>

> >> > As usual, I ask if you had a point to make and if so what it was.
> >
> >> I have one: you cherry-picked the rotation as a sample of Berlinski's mental caliber.
> >> Clue: there is a reason why "The rotational bit is fairly far down the page."
> > I cherry-picked nothing. That was the subject of the discussion at Sandwalk.
>

And now we come to your contribution, Erik:

> I looked at the Berlinski reference, and noted that DI lauds him (among other things) as a
> "raconteur". Just to make sure I knew what that meant, I looked it up. Sure enough, it
> means he tells good stories.

Stephen Jay Gould was a great raconteur, as great as they come in biology.

> If that "one man clade" story is a characteristic
> example, DI is even more screwed up than I thought.

You are being led by the nose by Harshman here.
Take a look at the reply to him by Matzke ("NickM") that he
grossly under-represented [1]:

"Hi John -- I'm not getting what you're not getting. It is common for e.g. students (and certain sorts of insufficiently educated biologists) to misinterpret cladograms (usually upwards-pointing ones) by giving significance to the left-to-right order of the tips at the top. This is the origin of myths like "rats are more closely related to humans than mice are", I think.

"It is also common for us evolutionary biologists to correct our students and to make the point that the branches can be rotated about the nodes without effecting the information in the cladogram, which is just the information of grouping relationships and sometimes the order of character state changes, if that is plotted. There are even several articles in education journals pointing this out and making exercises of this activity.

"But, Berlinski goes and does some node rotations and thinks he has a serious point, which I think is hilarious.

"You presumably know all of this already so I'm not sure what you're looking for from me. The Berlinski post is at the DI's Evolution News and Views."
-- https://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2013/07/idiot-irony.html
--comments section, Monday, July 22, 2013 1:10:00 PM

[1] The following half-truth is what John said about the above reply by Matzke:
"I was informed of what was said, I looked, and yep that's what he said."

Before you stick to your guns, Erik, take a good look at my reply to John yesterday evening;
it was built in part on Matzke's full reply above, not just the first two sentences that I quoted back then.

Oh, and before you decide Harshman's reply of a few minutes ago lets you off the
hook on what I wrote, note that it can (charitably) be interpreted as stalling for time until he can
look things up. In no way does he attempt to prove that Berlinski was being stupid;
he doesn't quote a blessed thing from Berlinski's article.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

P.S. Note, by the way, how Matzke was suitably impressed by Harshman's
credentials [Ph.D. from a "top ten" university, article in PNAS with 18 co-authors]:
"You presumably know all of this already so I'm not sure what you're looking for from me."

The unrelievedly credentialist *ad hominem* article by Moran was paying
handsome dividends for our own John Harshman.

On Wednesday, October 5, 2022 at 8:28:18 AM UTC-7, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Friday, September 30, 2022 at 6:11:43 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> > On Friday, September 30, 2022 at 1:47:54 PM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote:
> > > On 9/30/22 5:36 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > > On Thursday, September 29, 2022 at 3:50:38 PM UTC-4, John Harshman
> > > > wrote:
> > > >> On 9/29/22 10:03 AM, Glenn wrote:
> > > >>> On Wednesday, September 28, 2022 at 6:42:16 PM UTC-7, John
> > > >>> Harshman
> > > wrote:
> > > >
> > > >>>> Incidentally, have you read any of Glenn's recent production?
> > > >>>
> > > >>> If you are interested in seeing gains of entries on the subject,
> > > let's start somewhere, How about here?
> <snip of things I dealt with in my reply to Harshman>
> > > >>> "How can anyone be at once so condescendingly smug and so
> > > >>> mindlessly
> > > wrong? Oh yeah: he's an IDiot."
> > > >>>
> > > >>> https://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2013/07/idiot-irony.html
> > > >
> > > > That is pure *argumentum ad hominem*, but it is nothing compared to
> > > the condescendingly smug
> > > > article by Moran, which is one solid mass of *ad hominems* with not
> > > > a single attempt to refute
> > > > anything the "IDiot" Luskin says in the linked article.
>
> > > This too is off-topic.
> The egocentric Harshman ignored what I wrote about Moran, but
> that is not obvious from his next two sentences; only from the third.
> > > But since you mention it, that wasn't an ad
> > > hominem argument. It wasn't an argument at all. It was an opinion based
> > > on reading Berlinski's thing.
> <snip of things to be dealt with in separate reply to John's post>
> > > >
> > > >>> Never mind that Berlinski is far from mindless, you appear to
> > > >>> thinkof yourself as being 'right" and so not condescending or
> > > >>> smug, when you call someone who isn't even part of the
> > > >>> conversation an "IDiot" - and without any support!
> > >
> > > >>> The irony, it burns. You.
> <snip of things to be dealt with in separate reply to John's post>
> > > >> But here's a link:
> > > >> https://evolutionnews.org/2013/07/a_one_man_clade/
> > > >>
> > > >> The rotational bit is fairly far down the page. If anyone needs an
> > > >> explanation of its sheer stupidity, I would be willing to supply
> > > >> one.
> <snip of things dealt with in my reply to John yesterday evening>
> > >> > As usual, I ask if you had a point to make and if so what it was.
> > >
> > >> I have one: you cherry-picked the rotation as a sample of Berlinski's mental caliber.
> > >> Clue: there is a reason why "The rotational bit is fairly far down the page."
> > > I cherry-picked nothing. That was the subject of the discussion at Sandwalk.
> >
> And now we come to your contribution, Erik:
> > I looked at the Berlinski reference, and noted that DI lauds him (among other things) as a
> > "raconteur". Just to make sure I knew what that meant, I looked it up. Sure enough, it
> > means he tells good stories.
> Stephen Jay Gould was a great raconteur, as great as they come in biology..
> > If that "one man clade" story is a characteristic
> > example, DI is even more screwed up than I thought.
> You are being led by the nose by Harshman here.
> Take a look at the reply to him by Matzke ("NickM") that he
> grossly under-represented [1]:
>
> "Hi John -- I'm not getting what you're not getting. It is common for e.g.. students (and certain sorts of insufficiently educated biologists) to misinterpret cladograms (usually upwards-pointing ones) by giving significance to the left-to-right order of the tips at the top. This is the origin of myths like "rats are more closely related to humans than mice are", I think.
>
> "It is also common for us evolutionary biologists to correct our students and to make the point that the branches can be rotated about the nodes without effecting the information in the cladogram, which is just the information of grouping relationships and sometimes the order of character state changes, if that is plotted. There are even several articles in education journals pointing this out and making exercises of this activity.
>
> "But, Berlinski goes and does some node rotations and thinks he has a serious point, which I think is hilarious.
>
> "You presumably know all of this already so I'm not sure what you're looking for from me. The Berlinski post is at the DI's Evolution News and Views.."
> -- https://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2013/07/idiot-irony.html
> --comments section, Monday, July 22, 2013 1:10:00 PM
>
> [1] The following half-truth is what John said about the above reply by Matzke:
> "I was informed of what was said, I looked, and yep that's what he said."
> Before you stick to your guns, Erik, take a good look at my reply to John yesterday evening;
> it was built in part on Matzke's full reply above, not just the first two sentences that I quoted back then.
>
> Oh, and before you decide Harshman's reply of a few minutes ago lets you off the
> hook on what I wrote, note that it can (charitably) be interpreted as stalling for time until he can
> look things up. In no way does he attempt to prove that Berlinski was being stupid;
> he doesn't quote a blessed thing from Berlinski's article.
> Peter Nyikos
> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> University of South Carolina
> http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
> P.S. Note, by the way, how Matzke was suitably impressed by Harshman's
> credentials [Ph.D. from a "top ten" university, article in PNAS with 18 co-authors]:
> "You presumably know all of this already so I'm not sure what you're looking for from me."
>
> The unrelievedly credentialist *ad hominem* article by Moran was paying
> handsome dividends for our own John Harshman.
You speak from an ignorance that I have no interest in addressing.

On Wednesday, October 5, 2022 at 12:37:53 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> On Wednesday, October 5, 2022 at 8:28:18 AM UTC-7, peter2...@gmail.com wrote:
> > On Friday, September 30, 2022 at 6:11:43 PM UTC-4, erik simpson wrote:
> > > On Friday, September 30, 2022 at 1:47:54 PM UTC-7, John Harshman wrote:
> > > > On 9/30/22 5:36 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > > > > On Thursday, September 29, 2022 at 3:50:38 PM UTC-4, John Harshman
> > > > > wrote:
> > > > >> On 9/29/22 10:03 AM, Glenn wrote:
> > > > >>> On Wednesday, September 28, 2022 at 6:42:16 PM UTC-7, John
> > > > >>> Harshman
> > > > wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > >>>> Incidentally, have you read any of Glenn's recent production?
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>> If you are interested in seeing gains of entries on the subject,
> > > > let's start somewhere, How about here?
> > <snip of things I dealt with in my reply to Harshman>
> > > > >>> "How can anyone be at once so condescendingly smug and so
> > > > >>> mindlessly
> > > > wrong? Oh yeah: he's an IDiot."
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>> https://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2013/07/idiot-irony.html
> > > > >
> > > > > That is pure *argumentum ad hominem*, but it is nothing compared to
> > > > the condescendingly smug
> > > > > article by Moran, which is one solid mass of *ad hominems* with not
> > > > > a single attempt to refute
> > > > > anything the "IDiot" Luskin says in the linked article.
> >
> > > > This too is off-topic.
> > The egocentric Harshman ignored what I wrote about Moran, but
> > that is not obvious from his next two sentences; only from the third.
> > > > But since you mention it, that wasn't an ad
> > > > hominem argument. It wasn't an argument at all. It was an opinion based
> > > > on reading Berlinski's thing.
> > <snip of things to be dealt with in separate reply to John's post>
> > > > >
> > > > >>> Never mind that Berlinski is far from mindless, you appear to
> > > > >>> thinkof yourself as being 'right" and so not condescending or
> > > > >>> smug, when you call someone who isn't even part of the
> > > > >>> conversation an "IDiot" - and without any support!
> > > >
> > > > >>> The irony, it burns. You.
> > <snip of things to be dealt with in separate reply to John's post>
> > > > >> But here's a link:
> > > > >> https://evolutionnews.org/2013/07/a_one_man_clade/
> > > > >>
> > > > >> The rotational bit is fairly far down the page. If anyone needs an
> > > > >> explanation of its sheer stupidity, I would be willing to supply
> > > > >> one.
> > <snip of things dealt with in my reply to John yesterday evening>
> > > >> > As usual, I ask if you had a point to make and if so what it was..
> > > >
> > > >> I have one: you cherry-picked the rotation as a sample of Berlinski's mental caliber.
> > > >> Clue: there is a reason why "The rotational bit is fairly far down the page."
> > > > I cherry-picked nothing. That was the subject of the discussion at Sandwalk.
> > >
> > And now we come to your contribution, Erik:
> > > I looked at the Berlinski reference, and noted that DI lauds him (among other things) as a
> > > "raconteur". Just to make sure I knew what that meant, I looked it up.. Sure enough, it
> > > means he tells good stories.
> > Stephen Jay Gould was a great raconteur, as great as they come in biology.
> > > If that "one man clade" story is a characteristic
> > > example, DI is even more screwed up than I thought.
> > You are being led by the nose by Harshman here.
> > Take a look at the reply to him by Matzke ("NickM") that he
> > grossly under-represented [1]:
> >
> > "Hi John -- I'm not getting what you're not getting. It is common for e..g. students (and certain sorts of insufficiently educated biologists) to misinterpret cladograms (usually upwards-pointing ones) by giving significance to the left-to-right order of the tips at the top. This is the origin of myths like "rats are more closely related to humans than mice are", I think.
> >
> > "It is also common for us evolutionary biologists to correct our students and to make the point that the branches can be rotated about the nodes without effecting the information in the cladogram, which is just the information of grouping relationships and sometimes the order of character state changes, if that is plotted. There are even several articles in education journals pointing this out and making exercises of this activity.
> >
> > "But, Berlinski goes and does some node rotations and thinks he has a serious point, which I think is hilarious.
> >
> > "You presumably know all of this already so I'm not sure what you're looking for from me. The Berlinski post is at the DI's Evolution News and Views."
> > -- https://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2013/07/idiot-irony.html
> > --comments section, Monday, July 22, 2013 1:10:00 PM
> >
> > [1] The following half-truth is what John said about the above reply by Matzke:
> > "I was informed of what was said, I looked, and yep that's what he said.."
> > Before you stick to your guns, Erik, take a good look at my reply to John yesterday evening;
> > it was built in part on Matzke's full reply above, not just the first two sentences that I quoted back then.
> >
> > Oh, and before you decide Harshman's reply of a few minutes ago lets you off the
> > hook on what I wrote, note that it can (charitably) be interpreted as stalling for time until he can
> > look things up. In no way does he attempt to prove that Berlinski was being stupid;
> > he doesn't quote a blessed thing from Berlinski's article.
> > Peter Nyikos
> > Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
> > University of South Carolina
> > http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos
> > P.S. Note, by the way, how Matzke was suitably impressed by Harshman's
> > credentials [Ph.D. from a "top ten" university, article in PNAS with 18 co-authors]:
> > "You presumably know all of this already so I'm not sure what you're looking for from me."
> >
> > The unrelievedly credentialist *ad hominem* article by Moran was paying
> > handsome dividends for our own John Harshman.

> You speak from an ignorance that I have no interest in addressing.

You keep exemplifying the expression, "sour grapes".

Here is another example, from yesterday:

https://groups.google.com/g/sci.bio.paleontology/c/X2eRy1wQf8U/m/cE_mm0l8FQAJ
Re: Were Ichthyosaurs Ovoviviparous, or Viviparous?
Oct 4, 2022, 12:43:13 PM

Peter Nyikos