Taxonomy and the Tree of Life

[PilotCube]

Can you make a video on how to draw phylogenetic trees given some example species?

[EliteLennon117]

why do i go to high school when I could watch all these videos

[jomama365]

were very very close to actually being apes

[IshDat1KiD]

...HOW DO YOU WRITE SO WELL WITH YOUR MOUSE? D;

[DawnBreaker1100]

@IshDat1KiD He has a tablet that he connects to his computer to write (with a pen).

[srikargottipati]

Very nice. Learning the facts of Evolution is always thrilling

[KillaNinja0]

haha.. homo

[Smiley4997]

@KillaNinja0 I knew someone was going to say that before finishing the video.

[Sameboylol]

there are no other living species inside of homo

[eugen9611]

humans and bananas share 50% of their DNA, that doesn't mean anything, but sometimes it makes me think scary things

[IshDat1KiD]

@eugen9611

I'm a banana!!!

[Kinggenton]

i no longer believe in evolution! a recent documentary showed the top scientists in every field related to DNA, ETC , ETC say it is impossible!!!

but nice video either way.......

ITS ALL PROPAGANDA

[eugen9611]

@Kinggenton how's the documentary called?

[spinynorman1982]

Just in case anybody is curious, AronRa(YT Channel) is an internet personality that has a tremendous amount of entertaining and easily digestible videos about evolution, almost all of them are at the expense of creationists, but learning in general usually is at their expense. lol

[ateopuertorico]

Perhaps a new category needs to be made next to life, "Anti-life" which viruses seem to be good at, just going around consuming and destroying forms of life just to keep existing and evolving.

[thenoxiousbeing]

@ateopuertorico Like humans lol?

[ateopuertorico]

@thenoxiousbeing yay, someone got my joke lol

[dubaipete]

Sal, if you do not receive a Noble Prize for your amazing contribution to humanity I will lose my faith in it. You are a true hero.

[Shift4chizzle]

@21stcenturyissues same

[Shift4chizzle]

@21stcenturyissues who i am

[rescuemay]

viruses are so trippy. great video sir!

[ploy3snoy]

He is on our 100 kr ($13) bill! :)

[HeavyMetalCanuck]

I am a fish, because all humans have fish as ancestors.

Birds are dinosaurs because they are their distant offspring... This is how phylogeny (the current system used by biologists) works. No matter how evolved a group gets, it is still part of the larger group from which it evolved.

[TheAgnostiic]

@HeavyMetalCanuck You're partly right, but you're still not fish.

[HeavyMetalCanuck]

@TheAgnostiic yes I am, and so are you, biologically speaking.

In laymans terms fish only include what we think of as fish, but biologically we are fish. That is we are part of the clade called fish.

[sunso68]

@HeavyMetalCanuck didn't Steven Jay Gould say there's no such thing as "fish"? ;)

[CountingDayz]

very interesting (getting creative)

[eddiebertopsp]

Intresting

[mmjdodd]

This is an older classification system, the current classification heavily relies on DNA comparison (phylogenetic classification).  We do not compare with our eyes (physical features) anymore, rather we compare the DNA code.

[superdau]

@mmjdodd

Which pretty much is what Sal said ...

[vesji]

@mmjdodd He said it.

[pb1051]

@mmjdodd Khan KNOWS that.

[Hooya2]

@mmjdodd Well scientists still have to rely heavily on physical features when they're classifying fossils, since there is no DNA evidence.

[spinynorman1982]

@mmjdodd what is a clade? I hear that often but never understood where it fits into this older taxonomy classification. Let alone a newer version of it!

[armpitpuncher]

@spinynorman1982 A clade is a general term for an encompassing group in the tree of life. For example, at a very high level, animal is a clade, as are Plant and Fungi. Going a bit lower within the animal clade, chordate is a clade, mollusc is a clade and arthropod is a clade. Each clade can be broken down into smaller clades until you get to individual species.

[spinynorman1982]

@armpitpuncher So a clade is kind of like an all encompassing classification on each branch of the tree of life. Regardless of it's current classification of "order" or "kingdom"? All these classifications are under the umbrella term of clade?

[armpitpuncher]

@spinynorman1982 Yes, exactly. The problem with having an individual name for each group level, like Linnaeus did with his kingdom, phylum, etc, is that there are countless other levels in between those. So people started coming up with silly words like superorder, suborder, infraorder and parvorder for levels above and below. It's overkill on some of the branches, and on others, it's not nearly enough. So best just to do away with all that.

[KillerWhaleSFl]

learning is awesome! :D

[TheAustinConlon]

Interesting.