3 ms·

What does it mean for me to be older than my sister, when we have exactly the same ancestry?

• School-Cotton 1y ago
  It means you were born before her, but that analogy doesn't work, as there is no event in the known history of English or Welsh that corresponds in an obvious way to "being born". It's more like saying that humans are (as a species) older than bonobos -- it's not even clear what that means let alone whether or not it's true. There is no identifiable specific date at which people were speaking something recognizably "Welsh" or recognizably "English" (as opposed to proto-Indo-European). Both those languages have been evolving continuously, changing slightly every generation, from the point at which they were the same language thousands of years ago until today. Just like there is no specific identifiable date at which a generation of organisms was born that was bonobos or humans rather than proto-Great Apes.
  • AlecSchueler 1y ago
    > Just like there is no specific identifiable date at which a generation of organisms was born that was bonobos or humans rather than proto-Great Apes. And yet you can talk about certain species being older than another can you not?
    • School-Cotton 1y ago
      No, I don't think you can. What would it mean?
      • AlecSchueler 1y ago
        I'm not sure how to answer this because people do it all the time. Dogs as a species are around 15-20,000 years old for example, while cows only branched off from aurochs around 10,000 years ago. Both species have common ancestory but they are distinct and we can trace their paths back and give approximate dates to the individual branches, exactly as we do for languages.