Anthropocentrism is in some ways understandable but in the context of zoology it should be eschewed where possible.

Historically, taxonomy was highly anthropocentric, but over the last 50 years this has changed. Humans, bonobos and chimps are now part of a clade called Hominini, emphasising the fact that humans and chimps are much more closely related to each other than they are to any other animals.

Diagrams concerning primate evolution have also evolved.

This diagram from a 1879 book by Ernst Haeckel, which is detailed and shows evolution as a literal tree with animals ranked, in effect, by how closely they are related to humans. Invertebrates at the bottom, non-mammal vertebrates next, various mammals with primates at the top and right at the top, like an angel on a Christmas tree, MAN.
Haeckel Tree of Life

Here is a 1929 cover for a book by zoologist William King Gregory, showing evolution as a kind of upward ride through monkeys and apes to humanity. The second last face is that of Trucanini, a Tasmanian aborigine.

Even today, though, diagrams on primate evolution tend to be anthropocentric. This example is typical. It is an improvement in that it shows all extant forms equally evolved (ie, on the same vertical level). But there are two anthropocentric characteristics here: groups are shown veering off from the path that led to humanity with no further detail within these groups, and humans are shown at the very rightmost. This enables reader to recreate, in their minds, the paraphyletic groups of the olden days (eg a group containing gorillas and chimps but not humans).

I prefer evolution diagrams that have the following properties:

• Humans are shown in a position that does not highlight the distinction, ie not at either edge, nor in the centre.
• Sorting is chosen that reinforces the relationships: do not put chimps adjacent to gorillas, do not put gibbons adjacent to Old World Monkeys.
• Give large clades some kind of division. Don’t just have a single thread leading to “Old World Monkeys”, a group that contains two major clades that diverged 14 million years ago. I realise for the same of simplicity you might not show all splits but at least take it down to the level of families.
• The vertical scale should be somewhat linear with time.
• Ideally, include major extinct groups as well to give some sense of the process of speciation, divergence, extinction, survival.

dv said:

Anthropocentrism is in some ways understandable but in the context of zoology it should be eschewed where possible.

Historically, taxonomy was highly anthropocentric, but over the last 50 years this has changed. Humans, bonobos and chimps are now part of a clade called Hominini, emphasising the fact that humans and chimps are much more closely related to each other than they are to any other animals.

Diagrams concerning primate evolution have also evolved.

This diagram from a 1879 book by Ernst Haeckel, which is detailed and shows evolution as a literal tree with animals ranked, in effect, by how closely they are related to humans. Invertebrates at the bottom, non-mammal vertebrates next, various mammals with primates at the top and right at the top, like an angel on a Christmas tree, MAN.
Haeckel Tree of Life

Here is a 1929 cover for a book by zoologist William King Gregory, showing evolution as a kind of upward ride through monkeys and apes to humanity. The second last face is that of Trucanini, a Tasmanian aborigine.

Even today, though, diagrams on primate evolution tend to be anthropocentric. This example is typical. It is an improvement in that it shows all extant forms equally evolved (ie, on the same vertical level). But there are two anthropocentric characteristics here: groups are shown veering off from the path that led to humanity with no further detail within these groups, and humans are shown at the very rightmost. This enables reader to recreate, in their minds, the paraphyletic groups of the olden days (eg a group containing gorillas and chimps but not humans).

I prefer evolution diagrams that have the following properties:

• Humans are shown in a position that does not highlight the distinction, ie not at either edge, nor in the centre.
• Sorting is chosen that reinforces the relationships: do not put chimps adjacent to gorillas, do not put gibbons adjacent to Old World Monkeys.
• Give large clades some kind of division. Don’t just have a single thread leading to “Old World Monkeys”, a group that contains two major clades that diverged 14 million years ago. I realise for the same of simplicity you might not show all splits but at least take it down to the level of families.
• The vertical scale should be somewhat linear with time.
• Ideally, include major extinct groups as well to give some sense of the process of speciation, divergence, extinction, survival.
  

You would need a very large piece of paper to include all that.

and it would look like this

but sparser

SCIENCE said:

and it would look like this

but sparser

Perhaps I should put my gimp where my mouth is or vice versa and show you what it should look like…

dv said:

SCIENCE said:

and it would look like this

!https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2806/33472801654_d28a94021b_z.jpg

but sparser

Perhaps I should put my gimp where my mouth is or vice versa and show you what it should look like…

Do one called “OUR FISH from MAN to FACE”

Fishface manour

Seriously though, I agree that giving humans the same status as the other branches gives us a clearer picture of life on Earth and our actual place in it.

Bubblecar said:

dv said:

SCIENCE said:

and it would look like this

!https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2806/33472801654_d28a94021b_z.jpg

but sparser

Perhaps I should put my gimp where my mouth is or vice versa and show you what it should look like…

Do one called “OUR FISH from MAN to FACE”

By the time he returns with the data, half of us will have died and the other half will not remember him.

Bubblecar said:

Seriously though, I agree that giving humans the same status as the other branches gives us a clearer picture of life on Earth and our actual place in it.

Thank you

Bubblecar said:

Seriously though, I agree that giving humans the same status as the other branches gives us a clearer picture of life on Earth and our actual place in it.

We only occupy one branch, but if you wanted to detail say whales. Humans would not be in it, other than also being a mammal.

Bubblecar said:

Seriously though, I agree that giving humans the same status as the other branches gives us a clearer picture of life on Earth and our actual place in it.

Shouldn’t we be at the top grounding everything else underfoot

Cymek said:

Bubblecar said:

Seriously though, I agree that giving humans the same status as the other branches gives us a clearer picture of life on Earth and our actual place in it.

Shouldn’t we be at the top grounding everything else underfoot

That, too, is a recent phenomenon.

This link should work better.
dv said:

OK, so what do we call these groupings these days? Eg what do we now call “ovularia”?

paraphyletic

Here’s an evolution of the human skull. From Java man to Piltdown to Neanderthal to Cro Magnon.

mollwollfumble said:

This link should work better.

That pic was a bit big so I was just meaning to link it!

mollwollfumble said:

OK, so what do we call these groupings these days? Eg what do we now call “ovularia”?

That one stumped me. The only ovularia I know of is a fungus.

mollwollfumble said:

Here’s an evolution of the human skull. From Java man to Piltdown to Neanderthal to Cro Magnon.

I wonder if we could create a full proof fake skull with modern technology, I probably say no but whose knows

Cymek said:

mollwollfumble said:

Here’s an evolution of the human skull. From Java man to Piltdown to Neanderthal to Cro Magnon.

I wonder if we could create a full proof fake skull with modern technology, I probably say no but whose knows

Piltdown man was like the moon landing.

There are so many send-ups of this. don’t post them here.

This is the silhouette version, the original came with a bar chart and with each pre-human greyscale etched with fur. Why is this bad? Because we now realise that most of these are side-branches. Particularly “advanced Australopithecus”.

mollwollfumble said:

There are so many send-ups of this. don’t post them here.

Awwww

¿ don’t they qualify as bad evolution diagrams

I was trying to find a bad evolutionary chart that lumped dinosaurs with other reptiles and had birds separately. I haven’t found one yet, but this one is pretty awful as well.

mollwollfumble said:

I was trying to find a bad evolutionary chart that lumped dinosaurs with other reptiles and had birds separately. I haven’t found one yet, but this one is pretty awful as well.

Reptilia is a completely bullshit group

I would appreciate your feedback on this evolutionary tree.

mollwollfumble said:

I would appreciate your feedback on this evolutionary tree.

It’s amazing

dv said:

mollwollfumble said:

I would appreciate your feedback on this evolutionary tree.

http://pre12.deviantart.net/6e3f/th/pre/f/2015/359/5/4/the_cartoon_guide_to_vertebrate_evolution_by_albertonykus-d94erxy.png

It’s amazing

Is there a high res version?

dv said:

mollwollfumble said:

This link should work better.

That pic was a bit big so I was just meaning to link it!

mollwollfumble said:

OK, so what do we call these groupings these days? Eg what do we now call “ovularia”?

That one stumped me. The only ovularia I know of is a fungus.

You worry me sometimes.

roughbarked said:

dv said:

mollwollfumble said:

This link should work better.

That pic was a bit big so I was just meaning to link it!

mollwollfumble said:

OK, so what do we call these groupings these days? Eg what do we now call “ovularia”?

That one stumped me. The only ovularia I know of is a fungus.

You worry me sometimes.

That’s quite flattering.

dv said:

roughbarked said:

dv said:

That one stumped me. The only ovularia I know of is a fungus.

You worry me sometimes.

That’s quite flattering.

That’s even more of a worry.

roughbarked said:

dv said:

roughbarked said:

You worry me sometimes.

That’s quite flattering.

That’s even more of a worry.

You really shouldn’t worry so much. Go down to Nature’s Way and get some worrywort.

dv said:

roughbarked said:

dv said:

That’s quite flattering.

That’s even more of a worry.

You really shouldn’t worry so much. Go down to Nature’s Way and get some worrywort.

demeaning doesn’t become you.

roughbarked said:

dv said:

roughbarked said:

That’s even more of a worry.

You really shouldn’t worry so much. Go down to Nature’s Way and get some worrywort.

demeaning doesn’t become you.

I wasn’t intending to demean you.

The Rev Dodgson said:

dv said:

mollwollfumble said:

I would appreciate your feedback on this evolutionary tree.

http://pre12.deviantart.net/6e3f/th/pre/f/2015/359/5/4/the_cartoon_guide_to_vertebrate_evolution_by_albertonykus-d94erxy.png

It’s amazing

Is there a high res version?

Resolution 4000*2667 at
http://albertonykus.deviantart.com/art/The-Cartoon-Guide-to-Vertebrate-Evolution-551603446

The tortoise is saying “have you guys figured out where we go yet?” to which the answer I think is “yes”.

I think the group name “vertebrates” is in the wrong place, isn’t it? Shouldn’t it say “chordates”? I don’t think that the lancelet is considered a vertebrate.

But I could be wrong, wikipedia says “The vertebrates traditionally include the hagfish, which do not have proper vertebrae due to their loss in evolution”. No, I’m right, “The cephalochordates, or lancelets, comprise one of the three subphyla in the phylum Chordata, the other two being the vertebrates and tunicates.” So the hagfish evolved from the lancelet not the other way around. ?

First draft.

I haven’t put in the extinct groups yet.

It is possible that it is better not to spread it like this: after all, each of these divergences is a simple speciation, when it happens.

That’s certainly an improvement.

Thanks.

In preparing this, I was surprised to learn how out on its own the Aye-aye is. It has no common ancestors with any other living animal more recent than 48 million years. It’s really the last of its kind.

Also surprised to learn how many critically endangered primates there are, some of them with fewer than 100 individuals left.

dv said:

Thanks.

In preparing this, I was surprised to learn how out on its own the Aye-aye is. It has no common ancestors with any other living animal more recent than 48 million years. It’s really the last of its kind.

Also surprised to learn how many critically endangered primates there are, some of them with fewer than 100 individuals left.

Yes, it’s depressing.