Re: KT boundry event

On 18 Apr 2006 14:33:59 -0700, uraniumcommittee@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
[snip]
John Harshman wrote:

And they're dinosaurs too. This is really a very simple concept. What if
Pip had told you that whales are mammals? Would you have replied "Not
exactly. They're whales."? It's only tradition and the accidents of
extinction that led early taxonomists to makes Aves a class and
dinosaurs a part of a different class, Reptilia. Fortunately, those bad
old days of confusion are gone, and modern taxonomists show Aves as a
group within Dinosauria.

Necessarily, if our classifications are to mirror phylogeny, we must
have groups within groups. Birds are theropods, and dinosaurs, and
archosaurs, and amniotes, and tetrapods, and sarcopterygians, etc. One
does not preclude the others.

Dinosaurs as a group are extinct. Birds are different from dinosaurs as
a group. 'Dinosaurs' is a smaller group that does not include modern
birds per se, just as 'whales' does not include 'bovines'. Manatees are
not whales, even though manatees and whales may have a common ancestor.

We use different terms because the features of birds are different from
dinos.

Do you understand that cats are mammals *and* lemurs are mammals?
<http://www.answers.com/mammals&r=67>
Do you understand why we use the word "mammal" for these different
animals? Do you understand that we still call them mammals even
though some mammals have gone extinct?

Birds are dinosaurs. We don't care that other dinosaurs have gone
extinct. There were lots of different kinds of dinosaurs. Some were
*very* different from others... but they weren't so different that
they stopped being dinosaurs. Birds are dinosaurs. Birds have
changed over the years (via evolution) but they have not stopped being
dinosaurs.

--
¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,
Pip R. Lagenta Pip R. Lagenta Pip R. Lagenta Pip R. Lagenta
ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°

-- Pip R. Lagenta
President for Life
International Organization Of People Named Pip R. Lagenta
(If your name is Pip R. Lagenta, ask about our dues!)
<http://home.comcast.net/~galentripp/pip.html>
(For Email: I'm at home, not work.)

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: KT boundry event
    ... Pip had told you that whales are mammals? ... dinosaurs a part of a different class, ... Birds are different from dinosaurs as ... Do you understand that cats are mammals *and* lemurs are mammals? ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: KT boundry event
    ... that dinos had previously occupied. ... And dinosaurs, of course, didn't become extinct. ... Pip R. Lagenta Pip R. Lagenta Pip R. Lagenta Pip R. Lagenta ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: KT boundry event
    ... Pip had told you that whales are mammals? ... dinosaurs a part of a different class, ... Birds are different from dinosaurs as ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: KT boundry event
    ... Pip R. Lagenta wrote: ... Pip had told you that whales are mammals? ... dinosaurs a part of a different class, ... Birds are different from dinosaurs as ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: KT boundry event
    ... And dinosaurs, of course, didn't become extinct. ... Birds are dinosaurs. ... Pip R. Lagenta Pip R. Lagenta Pip R. Lagenta Pip R. Lagenta ...
    (talk.origins)
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