Talk:Hominidae

I've merged the material from Hominids, because it is really talking about the same group. However, it is somewhat difficult to work with because it seems to be assuming a definition based on traits, whereas biologists now focus on definitions based on descent. Thus, for instance, the page mentioned that orangutans might later be added to the group based on ecological activism, but it is taxonomists who would do that and only if it turned out the orangutan was closer related to the Homininae than the other great apes, regardless of what kind of minds they have. It would be nice, then, if someone could please smooth this out...

OK: The Hominidae article is fine as it is, and will be used to link new entries.

Biologists, taxonomists, and geneticists do seem to vary in the definitions, and of course it's political as well.

Perhaps we should keep Hominidae limited to the strict scientific consensus, and address controversy with the more political or social term "Hominids"?

My implication about orangs was that the definition of Hominidae might be altered to include them in defiance of taxonomists' normal criteria for this. It wouldn't be the first time science has bent to accomodate politics. But it's not a necessary point if you're up to date on the traits issue. A new longer entry on evolution_of_societies makes reference to these and the role of Great Ape awareness in changing human thinking about our own societies...

I consider this material non-controversial - National Geographic and the World Wildlife Fund are more radical on this point even than Greenpeace - NG says loudly and often that if humans extinct their nearest relatives in the wild then humans are 'literally dooming themselves to fatal self-delusions'.

With that, and ABC saying similar stuff on prime time TV, I don't find it too controversial to get into similarities between human and ape societies, and especially non-controversial to do so in the context of evolution of society itself (if it happens).

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I moved the text description of Hominids to Hominid which conforms to the wikipedia naming convention on use of English titles. However, I left the taxonomy of Hominids in this entry since it is Almanac/list like and therefore not appropriate for the main encyclopedia article at Hominid. More on this issue is at wikipedia talk:naming conventions (biology). --maveric149, Thursday, July 11, 2002

I checked that page and still do not understand. What is there about the list of genera that is inappropriate for placement in the main article? I have yet to see an encyclopedia which segregates information in this manner - even the World Book, designed for young readers, doesn't hesitate to put a table of orders under insect. --Josh Grosse

Because the scientific names are systematically being used to provide list-like taxonomic info per WikiProject Tree of Life. I would personally prefer we stick with only the English names even though I am a biologist (lists are not encyclopedic in character, not in English, often not the most widely used term and are plural -- which breaks a whole bunch of wikipedia naming conventions). However, Eclecticology and Pierre Abbat do have a point in their arguments to stick with the scientific names in order to get the taxonomy to work right (which depends on the precise scientific names). Thus the split. This is also a hypertext encyclopedia so all the list-like info is just a click away and there is no reason not to have some of this info in the main article -- but the tree-like lists should be separate as are other lists for other articles. --maveric149

Well, I'm all in favor of a systematic approach to things if it makes it easier to navigate and contribute, but here it seems to be doing just the opposite. Taxonomy is ultimately unimportant without information on what it is being classified, and conversely, a survey of membership and classification is a critical part of the description of a group, even for non-scientific audiences.

After all, where would you expect neon tetra to be linked from, if not from characin? To be sure, Characidae would have a full taxonomy under it, but then one would have to go through the circuitous route of charcin -> Characidae -> Paracheirodon innesi -> neon tetra, which is hindering matters far more than it helps.

I think a classification system of hominids is of sufficient value that, if I didn't know it was deliberately being kept separate, I would add it without a second thought. Again, under the description section in Hominidae, I would end up writing something very similar to what's written here if I didn't know it was here. If this isn't a sign two articles belong together, what is? I think that, as far as the problem of when we should use common names and when we should use scientific names goes, the worst possible solution is always to write the same article twice.

--Josh Grosse