Chordata Memes

Biologists really out here looking at a lancelet, a turtle, and a T-Rex saying "yep, same family reunion" but then freak out if two nearly identical worms diverged last weekend. The top diagram shows chordates (including us humans) claiming kinship with wildly different creatures because they share a notochord at some point, while the bottom shows taxonomists having an existential crisis over minor differences between worm-like creatures that probably couldn't even tell each other apart. The "point of divergence: before the big bang" vs "point of divergence: last weekend" is peak biological sarcasm. Taxonomy is just biologists playing favorites with their classification system while ignoring the screaming absurdity of it all.