Primate phylogeny: molecular evidence for a pongid clade excluding humans and a prosimian clade containing tarsiers
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- State Key Laboratory of Medical Genetics, Xiangya Medical School, Central South University
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- Received 21 September 2009 22:18 UTC; Posted 22 September 2009
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- Bioinformatics, Evolutionary Biology
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Interpretations of molecular data by the modern evolution theory are often sharply inconsistent with paleontological results. This is to be expected since the theory is only true for microevolution and yet fossil records are mostly about macroevolution. The maximum genetic diversity (MGD) hypothesis is a more coherent and complete account of evolution that has yet to meet a single contradiction. Here, molecular data were analyzed based on the MGD to resolve key questions of primate phylogeny. A new method was developed from a novel result predicted by the MGD: genetic non-equidistance to a simpler taxon only in slow but not in fast evolving sequences given non-equidistance in time. This ‘slow clock’ method showed that humans are genetically more distant to orangutans than African apes are and separated from the pongid clade (containing orangutan and African apes) 17.3 million years ago. Also, tarsiers are genetically closer to lorises than simian primates are, suggesting a tarsier-loris clade to the exclusion of simian primates. The validity and internal coherence of the primate phylogeny here were independently verified. The molecular split time of human and pongid calibrated from the fossil record of gorilla, or the fossil times for the radiation of anthropoids/mammals at the K/T boundary and for the Eutheria-Metatheria split in the Early Cretaceous, were independently confirmed from molecular dating calibrated using the fossil split times of tarsier-loris and two other pairs of mammals (mouse-rat and opossum-kangaroo). This remarkable and unprecedented concordance between molecules and fossils provides the latest confirmation of the inseparable unity of genotype and phenotype and the unmatched value of MGD in a coherent interpretation of life history.
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Huang, Shi. Primate phylogeny: molecular evidence for a pongid clade excluding humans and a prosimian clade containing tarsiers . Available from Nature Precedings <http://hdl.handle.net/10101/npre.2009.3794.1> (2009)
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Shi Huang on 03 October 2009 03:41 UTC
Ardipithecus, another death knell for the human-chimpanzee clade
The report of Ardipithecus in Science this week by White et al provides the latest factual confirmation for a pongid clade (containing African apes and orangutans) to the exclusion of humans, as revealed by molecular analysis based on the MGD hypothesis (1). The facts are awesome. They are not only just inconsistent with a chimpanzee like common ancestor for a human-chimp clade, but more to the point, they in fact flatly deny any possibility of such a clade in the first place. One would have to completely discredit the science of paleontology in order to accommodate the Ardi data with a human-chimp grouping rather than with the alternative human-pongid (containing African apes and orangutans) sister grouping (1). In blatant violation of the premises of the science of paleontology, the human-chimp grouping requires one to favor a scheme that requires more than a dozen convergent events at the expanse of a scheme that requires none. Furthermore, one must also favor a scheme that has no identifiable ancestors among the numerous middle Miocene apes versus one that has them perfectly. All these absurd insults to paleontology would have been tolerable if the sole evidence for the human-chimp grouping, the interpretation of sequence similarity by the molecular clock hypothesis, is actually based on solid contradiction-free science. But alas, this is anything but the case. The molecular clock hypothesis has so many contradictions (hardly a secret) that it would be a dead or falsified theory in any other branch of science.
Ref:
1. Huang, S. Primate phylogeny: molecular evidence for a pongid clade excluding humans and a prosimian clade containing tarsiers . Available from Nature Precedings (2009)
Below are some specific discussions on the flagship paper by White et al. Tim D. White, Berhane Asfaw, Yonas Beyene, Yohannes Haile-Selassie, C. Owen Lovejoy, Gen Suwa, and Giday WoldeGabriel (2 October 2009) Ardipithecus ramidus and the Paleobiology of Early Hominids. Science 326: 75-86.
White et al: “we have learned that Ar. ramidus was a denizen of woodland with small patches of forest, and probably was more omnivorous than chimpanzees (ripe fruit specialists) and likely fed both in trees and on the ground.”
Middle Miocene apes are already divided into two groups with one living in woodlands. As Stringer and Andrews write in their 2005 book: “Group one has robust jaws, enlarged molar teeth with thick enamel, and some buttressing of the face to accommodate chewing stresses caused by the large teeth and a hard fruit diet. They lived in seasonal woodland to open forest environments and were adapted to some extent to ground living.” They, I suggest, were the ancestors of humans and later developed bipedalism. To some authors, walking on two legs may arose more likely from a terrestrial form of locomotion on all fours (with on twos occasionally) rather than arboreal climbing and suspension. Ardi supports this perfectly. “The other group inhabited wetter, less seasonal forests and lived in trees employing a form of locomotion that involves some degree of suspension from overhead branches. Their jaws were more lightly built and their teeth not enlarged, so that their diet must have been soft fruits.” They are obviously the best candidates for the ancestors of pongids.
White et al : “Ar. ramidus thus indicates that the last common ancestors of humans and African apes were not chimpanzee-like.”
Indeed, Rama/siva is not chimpanzee like but Dryopithecus is. To accommodate the Ardi data with the human-chimp grouping would require the absurd notion that none of the two major groups of Miocene apes could qualify as ancestors to the MRCA of the human-chimp clade. One (rama/siva) is too human like (no suspension) and the other (dryopithecus) is too chimp/gorilla/pongo like (yes suspension). Any sane human not biased by the molecular clock based (mis)grouping of human and chimp could see the plain obvious from the fossil record that human and chimpanzee already have separate ape ancestors during early/middle Miocene.
White et al: “Overall, Ar. ramidus demonstrates that the last common ancestors of humans and African apes were morphologically far more primitive than anticipated, exhibiting numerous characters reminiscent of Middle and Early Miocene hominoids.”
Indeed. They have said it better than I can. They just did not make the most logical and straightforward deduction of what they said. That deduction is simply that Ardi was a descendant of one of the two major groups of Miocene apes, while African apes were descended from the other group. The real last common ancestors of humans and African apes lived in Early rather than Late Miocene.
White et al: “Despite the demise of Ramapithecus as a putative hominid ancestor, at least one Eurasian Miocene ape, Ouranopithecus, has been suggested as being phyletically related to later African hominids (57), whereas another, Dryopithecus, is often considered an alternative sister taxon of the hominid and African ape clade (58). Ardipithecus effectively falsifies both hypotheses.”
Ardi did not falsify but rather strongly supports the hypothesis that Dryopithecus was the ancestor of a pongid clade containing African apes and orangutans.
White et al: “The new perspective that Ar. ramidus offers on hominoid postcranial evolution strongly suggests that Dryopithecus acquired forelimb adaptations to suspensory behaviors independently from African apes. …. An additional implication of Ar. ramidus stems from its demonstration that remarkable functional and structural similarities in the postcrania of Pongo and the African apes have evolved in parallel, as have those of Pan and Gorilla. Until now, a myriad of characters shared among the extant African apes were presumed to have been present also in ancestral hominids (because they were presumed to have been the ancestral state) (60). However, it now appears that many of these putative shared primitive characteristics have evolved independently.”
Indeed, too many to be true. Let us here enumerate the absurdly high number of convergent events that must occur in order to accommodate Ardi with the human-chimp grouping, in contrast to zero such events for the human-pongid grouping. First, there are 4 independent inventions of suspensory behaviors in Dryopithecus, orangutan, gorilla, and chimpanzee. Note that suspension behaviors is a qualitative or macroevolutionary or epigenetic invention rather than quantitative or microevo. Life history as well as logical reasoning shows that quantitative features or microevolution are more likely to undergo convergent evolution, such as enamel thickness, body size or height. Second, other qualitative features shared by African apes that are unlikely to be convergent but must be required to be: 2 inventions of knuckle walking, foot structures lost twice (White et al: “Many of the foot’s primary adaptations to fulcrumation are probable retentions from the gorilla/chimpanzee/human last common ancestor (GLCA), but these have been eliminated in apes, presumably for vertical climbing.”), 2 inventions of rigid wrists, and 2 inventions of African ape hip structures. There are likely more but this incomplete list (a total of 14 convergent events and all for qualitative features) is far more than enough to show the extreme absurdity of the human-chimp grouping, especially in comparison with the conversion-free grouping of humans and pongids. As Pelbeam said: “They are hard to believe.” And well, that is because they are fiction.
White et al: “In effect, there is now no a priori reason to presume that human-chimpanzee split times are especially recent, and the fossil evidence is now fully compatible with older chimpanzee-human divergence dates [7 to 10 Ma (12, 69)] than those currently in vogue (70).”
This fossil date cannot possibly be reconciled with the molecular clock dating which typically is 5 Ma. This is sufficient to falsify the validity of the molecular clock and in turn its deductions, which include the human-chimpanzee grouping. The authors forgot that if they can freely allow themselves to doubt the molecular clock dating, they should be consistent and complete, which means “in effect, there is now no a priori reason to presume that there is a human-chimpanzee clade to the exclusion of other great apes.”