Re: KT boundry event

On 19 Apr 2006 06:41:50 -0700, uraniumcommittee@xxxxxxxxx wrote in
<1145454110.327458.196090@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> :


Augray wrote:
On 19 Apr 2006 05:57:55 -0700, uraniumcommittee@xxxxxxxxx wrote in
<1145451475.937469.301630@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> :


Pip R. Lagenta wrote:
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.)

Modern birds are a subset of Cretaceous birds, most of which were wiped
out at the KT boundary event. ALL modern birds are feathered and have
wings and fly, or are direct descendants of those that did fly.
Cretaceous birds, which were contemporaries of dinosaurs, could be
called 'dinosaurs', but modern birds have evolved too much and are too
different to be called 'dinosaurs'. That's why we have the term 'bird'.

On what basis do you claim that they've evolved too much to be called
dinosaurs?. I'm hard pressed to think of *any* trait possessed by
living birds that wasn't present in some bird living in the
Cretaceous.


To call birds 'dinosaurs' makes no more sense than calling them fish.
Birds used to be fish, but are no longer fish.

What do you base this claim on? You keep repeating it, but give no
evidence to back it up.

For one, birds' respiratory system is unique. It is not shared by any
other group.

Absolutely false. Theropod dinosaurs in all likelihood had a
respiratory system very similar to that of living birds. See:

O?Connor, P. M., & L. P. A. M. Claessens. 2005. Basic avian
pulmonary design and flow-through ventilation in non-avian
theropod dinosaurs. Nature 436:253-256.


See:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0312310080/sr=1-1/qid=1145453804/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-1737020-1779102?%5Fencoding=UTF8&s=books

How does this page support your claim?


The use of language is somewhat arbitrary. 'Fish' as it is now used, is
applied to a certain class of water-dwelling creatures with gills,
though not to all water-dwelling creatures with gills, nor to all
water-dwelling creatures (though it was in the past applied to
water-dwelling creatures with lungs).

Some salamanders have gills and are water-dwelling, but are not classed
as fish.

Birds as a group are sufficiently different from dinosaurs as a group
to merit separate nomenclature, which is a fait accompli.

You've given a single trait which is incorrect. At what point to you
believe this trait supposedly evolved?


It is silly and pointless to reduce the number of distinctions.

It's not a case of reducing the number of distinctions, it's pointing
out that "birds are not dinosaurs" is an arbitrary distinction.


Birds
are NOT dinosaurs; they are birds. Dinos are all extinct.

Birds are *indeed* dinosaurs, just as primates are mammals.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: KT boundry event
    ... Pip R. Lagenta wrote: ... Please note that the trivial group called "birds" is off to the left. ... It is trivial because dinosaurs then become just another living group. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: KT boundry event
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    (talk.origins)
  • Re: KT boundry event
    ... are dinosaurs, plain and simple, in colloquial terms as well as ... We call them birds, but they ... 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 ... 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)
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