I am pretty sure they meant one individual tiger, not a pair or a kind. But as you point out, this doesn't really matter. Also, let's throw out the dating assumptions as well (a little more complicated) as they have no direct bearing.dad wrote: OK, I did note it, and adjusted the post accordingly! Doesn't change a thing. Oh, I didn't put the part about the dating assumptions in, because they are wrong! All we need to do is look what it may have been based on. I suspect that may be present rates of one thing or another.
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Actually I had assumed they meant one pair there. But if it meant just one kind, fine, as I say it changes nothing.
I suppose I asked the wrong question. Why bring up the tiger example at all? You are quoting a scientific paper to show that all present species of tigers originated from one (whatever, doesn't matter). But the same techniques used by the authors to find the last common ancestor of tigers can also be used to come up with a putative last common ancestor between species. I doubt that you will agree with that level of evolution. So how do you choose which scientific claims to use to back up your arguments and which to reject, when the claims deal with last common ancestors ?