User:Davidwr/Talk Most ancient common ancestor

The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Give me some time for this, I've just started. Thanks.Ryoung122 11:28, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] candidate for deletion

I have just added 'original research' template to this new article. I plan to nominate for deletion soon. Fred Hsu 04:32, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

• Please cite sources to support the so-called 'most ancient common ancestor'. The pbs page is merely describing how Lucy (Australopithecus) is a common ancestor to various lineages of hominids. Clearly they meant 'most recent common ancestor' in the article. It was a typo.
• Most 'ancient' common ancestor does not make sense. Clearly, the most 'ancient' common ancestors of all human (or for that sake, between you and me) is the first self-replicating RNA. See the book The Ancestor's Tale.
• The article is clearly written as an attack on Recent single origin hypothesis. You should be editing Multiregional hypothesis instead of creating your own article.
• I just re-read this article to try to get my head around it. The author does not seem to understand what Most recent common ancestor,

Y-chromosomal Adam and Mitochondrial Eve are, and what they really mean. Please make sure to read Mitochondrial_Eve#Eve_and_the_Out-of-Africa_theory first.

[edit] Tracing Ancestry with MtDNA seems to be self-contradictory

Tracing Ancestry with MtDNA is self-contradictory: It says They are believed to be the most ancient common ancestor, or "stem" species, from which all later hominids sprang. Yet the definition of common ancestor proffered says

common ancestor: The most recent ancestral form or species from which two different species evolved.

I found almost 10-15 hits on Google for the term most ancient common ancestor. Surely there's a better definition there. I'll see what I can do to improve the article. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 13:02, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Recommend redirect

I recommend redirecting this to Clade or one of the other articles in Category:Phylogenetics. Other possibilities include Phylogenetic tree and Most recent common ancestor. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 13:19, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps the latter? Extremely sexy 14:40, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Not until someone comes up with a clear definition of this term which makes sense. Please also cite real sources for this term. Currently cited sources talk about most recent common ancestor which is already well written in its own article. What can we add to that article that is not already there? Fred Hsu 15:26, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

:::Google shows about 10-15 sources that use the term, but I'm not convinced they use the term in a consistent manner. Some use it as a substitute for most recent common ancestor. Others use it for the "root" of a taxonomic tree (see: Clade). This usage is similar to but different than most recent common ancestor. In any case, If this article isn't basically rewritten by the end of the AfD period, it should be axed or replaced with a redirect. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 18:24, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The pre-gutting version is far better

Fred Hsu's version of 05:10, 21 July 2007 is a lot better. I still think it should be merged with another article but it's strong enough to withstand an RfD. I'm going to revert in a few hours if nobody objects and the main article isn't dramatically improved. It's a bit past 2100, I'll wait until 0300 before reverting. Why the gutting? Fred Hsu tagged it as OR at 4:21 this morning. Rather than discuss it here or on the AfD page, MichaelCPrice gutted it at 08:39. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 21:16, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Reverted. Edits after 05:10 21 July are no longer on the main page. There are some useful "see also's" and references on the post-gutted version. Pick them out of the version from 14:36 21 July. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 04:40, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Web sites that use the term

Google lists 15 web sites that use the term Most ancient common ancestor.

Summary: 8 articles use the term in the context of Clade. 1 uses it in the context of genetic genealogy. The use in 4 articles is unclear.

Opinion: Even if all 4 uses of the term support the article, at best this article should be made a disambiguation page:

Articles found in a Google Search:

Find sources: most ancient common ancestor — news, books, scholar patent nonsense, delete away. dab (𒁳) 17:54, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

OK fine you are the 2nd person to gut remove most of the unsourced material from the article. At least you were nice enough to leave a little of the original article. No point in reverting it again. I added additional meanings, moved some tags around, and otherwise started transforming this into a disambiguation stub. If the article survives deletion the new unreferenced section and the 2 unreferenced lines in the disambiguation part at the top will probably be edited away. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 19:15, 22 July 2007 (UTC) edited davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 21:20, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, why should we leave anything of the original article if it was all unsourced nonsense? dab (𒁳) 19:34, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

To give the author, yourself if you are so inclined, and other editors a reasonable period of time to fix it. I usually give at least a week on low-traffic articles, a couple of days on articles that are edited regularly. Compare with the {{fact|July 2007}} tag: It is customary to place the tag, wait awhile, then remove the tagged text. Where possible, contacting the author that put the text there in the first place is also good practice.

The editor who put up the original OR tag and did the AfD should have tried to notify the original author and wait a few days if not a week or more between posting the OR tag and calling for the deletion. In the meantime, he should have done the work I did with Google and posted the results to this talk page, so when the AfD did come along, everyone would know the original text was not only unsourced but in all likelihood not even rewritable without dramatically changing the entire point of the article. IMHO if an AfD is likely to be anything but unanimous, the person who will call it should probably discuss it on the article talk page before formally proposing it. This gives the editors a heads up and a chance to fix it before starting the AfD process. Of course, those that are likely to be uncontested are candidates for WP:PROD. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 21:13, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

As the first author who "gutted" the article, may I ask why anything about the Multiregional hypothesis is back in it? As it is the article starts by defining the most ancient common ancestor (which may be the same as the most recent common ancestor) and then skews off-tangent to push the multi-regional hypothesis. Eh? --Michael C. Price ^talk 21:43, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

This isn't an answer to your question, but if I were writing the article from scratch, I would either write a disambiguation page, or I would write an article with sections about each sourceable use of the term. I would put the most important use first, followed by less important ones. I am still holding out slim hope that the original author will come in and save the day with references to the use of the term as he used it. Barring that, what's left of the original will probably go away in a few days, if the whole article doesn't. That will leave just the disambiguation portions. The two unsourced lines in the top will also likely disappear after a reasonable time to hunt for sources. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 22:35, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

the "gutted" material has no perceptible connection with the term. The existence of the term itself is tenuous to say the least. A treatment of "each sourceable use of the term" may be welcome on Wiktionary but goes nowhere towards justifying a dedicated Wikipedia article. If there is anything of value here, it should be inserted at Multiregional hypothesis. If you really think there is anything salvageable here, you may post it to Talk:Multiregional hypothesis for the record, but this article really has no merit whatsoever, and in my book might even qualify as a "patent nonsense" speedy. dab (𒁳) 11:00, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Also, I have no idea what made you do that -- it seems obvious that you have not read the mrca article even cursorily. dab (𒁳) 11:03, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I did it because one term was a redirect for the other. Did you undo the redirect also? If not, please restore my original text or delete the unsourced line altogether. Also, the use in Clade is a technical use and is in fact the most common use of the term in the Google search results, particularly among scholars. If anything deserves to be mentioned in connection with this term, it does. Please revert it back to the way I had it or explain why the scholars are wrong. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 12:48, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I doubt you have understood the (few) scholarly uses of the term you have found. One paper seems to talk about various common ancestors, and then refers to the most ancient one among these, i.e. the 'most ancient' is used incidentially, not as part of a fixed term. You apparently also failed to understand that identical ancestors point used to be a {{R with possibilities}}. I suggest you trust me on this. dab (𒁳) 20:59, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.