Re:Why extraterrestrial life may not seem alien
by ncmncm on Tuesday August 03, 2021 @07:57PM
(#28055739)
You miss the point. Humans and bony fish share a most recent common ancestor. We are much closer to the fish than our common ancestor is to the shark.
Re:Why extraterrestrial life may not seem alien
by dragonwriter on Tuesday August 03, 2021 @08:06PM
(#28055791)
Um, my point was that that is arguably true of bony fishes, more clearly true of the narrower category of lobe finned fishes, but not at all true as originally claimed of fishes generally, as that includes cartilaginous fishes (including sharks), and sharks are pretty definitively more closely related to sharks than to humans.
Re:Why extraterrestrial life may not seem alien
by ncmncm on Tuesday August 03, 2021 @08:24PM
(#28055903)
In other words, a meaningless statement. In original context, my remark was about fish with air bladders.
Re:Why extraterrestrial life may not seem alien
by dragonwriter on Tuesday August 03, 2021 @08:36PM
(#28055961)
It actually, as written, asserted that all fish have air bladders.
“Fish with air bladders do not, in fact, use oil in their livers for buoyancy. They have an ‘air bladder’, which you may read about. [...] Fish with air bladders are much more closely related to you than to sharks, so it is a big error.” is critically different than what you actually wrote upthread, and is obviously kind of silly. It also would have made no sense in response to the post it responded to, which also referenced “fish” in general and not “fish with air bladders”.
Sharks are fish, so this clearly isn't categorically true. You probably mean either bony fish (for which I think it's kind of questionable that its true) or more specifically lobe-finned fish (for which the case is stronger.)