But, as for the matter of whether there could, very very rarely, be a survivable and fertile distant [inter-order mammalian] hybrid... That, as I said before, isn't known. So let's not claim to know the answer to that.

McCarthy doesn't claim the pig-theory as fact, but only presents some facts that are otherwise difficult to explain. — Michael Ossipoff

Because of the above, McCarthy's suggestion isn't "unscientific" or "absurd" or "ridiculous".

What's unscientific is the pretense of asserting what you don't know, the pretense of assigning to oneself the authority to declare, unsupported, that a suggestion by someone better-credentialed than you is unscientific, just-plain-wrong, absurd, etc.

Baden hasn't given a specific objection to McCarthy's suggestion, other than scientific findings like "I don't need a genetics PhD to know that it's absurd on the face of it".

Well,as I said, this topic has been useful and valuable, just for bringing-out certain character-flaws and pretenses that , regrettably, aren't nearly as rare as fertile inter-order mammalian hybrid offspring.

Michael Ossipoff

13 W
0401 UTC

Today I requested that my membership at these forums be cancelled, because I won’t participate in a forum whose moderators are allowed to tamper with a thread or posting because they personally disagree with its content. …especially when it’s a thread quoting an author with established PhD specialist-credentials on the topic, and it’s a topic on which the moderator is uncredentialed. (You know who you are.)
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That’s relevant at this thread, because, if later there’s more argument from someone, I don’t want it to look as if I didn’t reply because he’s said something irrefutable. So I’m explaining why I won’t answer again at this thread (or any other at these forums).
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But that isn’t the topic of this posting. Because I’m quitting this moderator-petty-tyrant forum, I’d like to post this one more message to this thread, on this thread’s topic:
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Some of you here seem to have a lot of confusion about McCarthy’s Pigchimp theory. Dr. McCarthy doesn’t claim or assert that his theory is true. Do you know what “theory” means?
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Likewise, I, in this thread, haven’t asserted that McCarthy’s theory is true.
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As I myself have been doing here, McCarthy (who is more qualified in these matters than you or I) acknowledges that a survivable and fertile inter-order mammalian hybrid, even if possible at all, evidently must be very, very unlikely, and, if it ever happens, evidently must be very, very rare. Maybe it can’t happen. Someone here said “very unlikely”. Okay.
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But, while acknowledging that, McCarthy merely presents some facts that otherwise are difficult to explain. Facts that have been puzzling scientists for some time.
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*Yes, I’ve said this, but it doesn’t seem to have sunk in: McCarthy published a long list of attributes by which we differ from all of the other primates. And we share all those attributes with pigs.
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Unless someone can show why humans and pigs, with their different lifestyles and ways of living, would convergently evolve all of those attributes (while our putative only direct ancestors, the chimp-like apes, evolved none of them, then you have a remarkable coincidence to explain.
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Yes, some of you here have assured us, on your expert hybridization-genetics authority, that there’s nothing surprising about what was said in the above paragraph with the asterisk (*).
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And of course those are the same experts who, unlike McCarthy, who only has a genetics PhD, and a background of long specialization in hybridization, are sure that a survivable and fertile inter-order mammalian hybrid is, not only very improbable, not only very rare, but entirely impossible.
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How wonderful that you know so much more, about his own subject, than that recognized and established PhD hybridization-specialist!
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Bottom-line: McCarthy acknowledges the evident extreme unlikelihood and rarity of a fertile surviving mammalian cross-order hybrid. That’s why he calls his suggestion a “theory” instead of a “fact”.
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McCarthy merely mentions the facts in the above paragraph with the asterisk (*) in front of it. Make what you want of it.
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So you’re sure that you know that a survivable and fertile inter-order mammalian hybrid is, not just unlikely, not just rare, bu, on your expert authority, entirely impossible? (Where did you get your genetics PhD?)…and that the facts in the above paragraph with the asterisk are easily explained without the Pigchimp theory (the explanation is obvious to you, but not to McCarthy)? …and that you’re right about all that, and a PhD geneticist with an extensive background in hybridization-genetics is wrong?
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Then, have you heard of the Dunning-Kruger effect? Look it up. You’re exhibiting it.
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Michael Ossipoff

If you want a community where people are judged on their credentials rather than their arguments, you're in the wrong place anyway. Whatever credentials we happen to have or not to have don't in themselves make us better or worse posters or mods. Good luck.