Talk:Proteaceae

Carboniferous? I think not!

According to current scientific consensus, flowering plants did not arise until the early Cretaceous. This is impossible to reconcile with the claim that the Proteaceae arose in the Carboniferous. Such outrageous claims should only be given coverage here if they are published in a reputable journal and taken seriously by the scientific community. I can see no evidence that this is the case here. See Wikipedia:Fringe theories for more information.

Hesperian 05:46, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps, but logic dictates that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Scientific consensus once thought the body was comprised of black bile, yellow bile, phlegm and blood. Dr. Levin makes his points logically and has been studying plate tectonics and botany for many years. And, indeed, every few years the timeline for the origin of angiosperms has been pushed back. David Dilcher, himself, at UF, concedes the point that the date of origin of the angiosperm is uncertain. Dr. Levin's arguments have the tacit support of geophysicist D.H. Tarling, whose credentials are unquestioned. All the DNA studies in the world can't date origin of a particular family of plant. You are merely citing a theory to refute a hypothesis. Levin's work deserves mention. Mikems (talk) 03:15, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

If Levin's work is credible, he should have no trouble getting it published in a reliable source. When he does, we'll include it here. Hesperian 03:45, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Modern science seeks to rule out alternative explanations. The article you're linking too suffers from a fair dose of confirmation bias. It's one thing to say that the date of origin of the angiosperms is uncertain - it's quite another to take that (bounded) uncertainty and use it to propose a data that's entirely outside of the currently accepted range. It is a fringe idea, and it also hasn't been published in the literature. So it's outside of the scope of this article. Guettarda (talk) 04:38, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

I do need to look at this further but have mused on the age of the lineage - one interesting issue I noted with Peter Weston is the several terminal red-flowered members of Emothtriinae located around the pacific - Alloxylon and Telopea speciosissima from Oz, and Embothrium coccineum from Chile. If we presume they were/are non covnergent, then there have been terminal-red-flowered plants since the mid-cretaceous, when South America, antarctica and Australia were last joined. Similarly there has been some interesting findings with proteoid clades btween western Australia and Southern Africa. with relations between Petrophile and Aulax, and isopogon and other african species, so that the family must have been diverse for a very long time (or there was some hidden landmass in the Indian Ocean ;)). Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:58, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Harry Levin's work (harrylevin@earthlink.net) is consistent with other scientific findings. The assertion of Cretaceous origin of flowering plants is superseded by the Wikipedia entry on angiosperms, as follows: "While the fossil evidence so far shows us such flowers existing only about 130 million years ago, there is some circumstantial evidence that they may have existed 250 million years ago. A chemical used by plants to defend their flowers, oleanane, has been detected in fossil plants from that age. This includes gigantopterids [5], which evolved at that time and bear many of the traits of modern, flowering plants (though they are not known to be flowering plants themselves because only their stems and prickles have been found preserved in detail)." No one has bothered to dispute Levin's chart of relationships of biota with tectonic genesis. And it's plainly absurd to suggest that this is an attempt to use Wikipedia to promote another website. The http://www.flwildflowers.com site is already at the top of Google in its category and has been for several years. 67.233.168.250 (talk) 20:46, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I need some time to digest this. Okay I will have a look at the angiosperm page as well. Casliber (talk · contribs) 22:04, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Limited evidence for the hypothesis that the angiosperms arose in the Paleozoic, is a million miles away from evidence that the Proteaceae arose in the Carboniferous. I could explain the fundamental differences, and why the former does not imply the latter; but all that really matters here is that the former has been published in a reliable source, and the latter has not. Hesperian 00:29, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Whether Levin's article (the one you linked to; don't know anything about his other work) is "consistent" with other findings or not is actually beside the point. Levin's article doesn't constitute a reliable source. We can't use. That is, of course, quite apart from the fact that Levin's article doesn't rule out other explanations that could explain his observations. If you provide an explanation for an observation, and fail to rule out alternative explanations, you aren't doing science. If your explanation requires turning to current understanding on its head, and you fail to rule out other explanations...then you're in the real of fringe. Guettarda (talk) 05:27, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Scientific progress (see Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions) hasn't actually required ironclad adherence to Popperian logic, and, in fact, disputes it. Efficacy of smallpox inoculation or use of penicillin, for example, did not depend on ruling out that nothing else worked. Outsider theories present guideposts. But insiders have often trespassed. Cretaceous origin as a theory is disputed by paleobotanist Bruce Cornet (Fossil Evidence for Root Parasites (resembling Balanophoraceae) in a Late Triassic Tropical Rift Basin, Central Pangaea http://www.sunstar-solutions.com/sunstar/Balanophor/BalanoTrias.htm) He writes : Molecular data has consistently excluded (falsified) the Cretaceous as the time of angiosperm origin. These estimates are based on an average mutation rate, but rapid evolution during punctuated equilibria indicates that mutation rates may vary considerably depending on the type of genetic alteration.

Levin's ideas are not cut from whole cloth and as time goes by will gain in plausibility. Meanwhile, his site remains quite popular, especially with his excellent photography of various species of Proteaceae. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mikems (talk • contribs)

Entirely beside the point. Levin's article is (a) not a reliable source, and (b) makes no attempt to address other, more plausible explanations. So it isn't something we can use. That's all. Guettarda (talk) 19:09, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Mike, you're trying to make this into a discussion about Cretaceous versus Paleozoic origin of the angiosperms. No-one disagrees that the claim of Paleozoic origin of the angiosperms should be included in Wikipedia. That claim has been published in reliable peer-reviewed journals, and is currently covered in our angiosperm article. What this discussion is about, is whether our Proteaceae article should cover the claim for a Carboniferous origin of the Proteaceae—a claim which, as far as I can tell, has never been been accepted for publication in a reliable source.

If indeed Levin's ideas "gain in plausibility" as time goes by, then I expect we'll start to see coverage in reliable sources, at which time we'll be happy to introduce coverage here. But until then, nothing doing.

Hesperian 00:26, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

We report that of 266,000 mentions of Proteaceae in Google, Dr. Levin's work is ranked number 21.67.233.168.250 (talk) 13:52, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Dr. Harry Levin's forthcoming article on the Balanophoraceae will set new parameters for the discussion of the date of the advent of the angiosperm and the dawn of the Proteaceae. The spirit of inquiry by Levin in his essays on earth history is consistent with the dictates of logic in a distinguished career in chemical engineering, rocket fuels and coal gassification.67.233.168.250 (talk) 03:49, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Whatever; hopefully he gets it published in a reliable source, so that we can use it. Hesperian 03:57, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Subdivisions

The organization under subfamily Grevilleoideae given here is considerably different than that found at the subfamily article. Can somebody look into it and apply the same division to both articles? Circéus (talk) 21:31, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

This is the more up to date. I did them both according to Johnson and Briggs (1975), then later updated this one to Weston and Barker (2006). I'll sort it out. Hesperian 23:57, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Done. Hesperian 00:01, 22 March 2010 (UTC)