Re: KT boundry event


uraniumcommittee@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
John Harshman wrote:

Once something has changed, it's no longer what it was before. Fish
become mammals and stop being fish. Whales have to breathe air because
they're mammals and no longer fish. If they were still fish, they would
not have lungs and breathe air.

You do understand, don't you, that there is lots of evolutionary change
within both fish and mammals?

Really? I had not heard that!

Whether something is a "different thing"
after some particular amount of change is arbitrary.

RIGHT! Ring the bell! Shout it from the rooftops: "Whether something is
a "different thing" after some particular amount of change is
arbitrary.

What do you think I have been arguing all this time?

That everybody should accept *your* arbitrary and not the arbitrary
that everyone else has agreed upon. Everyone else seems to think that
extinct birds may be called birds, no problem.

*snip*
The 'mammals' of this time
were not the same sort of thing as mammals of today. It's a mistake to
call them mammals anyway. We have to use terms like 'mammal-like
reptiles' to get around these problems.

Was this a mammal-like reptile?

Was WHAT a mammal-like reptile?

The animal described in the link.

I didn't see it.

You didn't see the link, or you didn't see the animal because you didn't
look at the link?

I did not see the link at first.

Try it now. Mammal or not?

I have no idea. Mammoid?

Shouldn't you have an idea of where the lines go if you want everyone
to adopt your usage? "Call them what I call them" doesn't work if you
don't know what to recommend.

*snip*

Nope. Ancient members of equus are not 'horses' either. 'Horse' is a
vernacular word that refers to the modern animals. Use terms such as
Cormohipparion, Sinohippus, Astrohippus, but not 'horse'.

Everyone other than you calls these "horses". Even Hyracotherium is a
horse.

They're wrong.

Language is a set of conventions. If the convention most people agree
upon is that Astrohippus is a horse, then it's a horse. If scientific
usage and the vernacular usage differ, then we need to look at the
context to find out. Two or more different usages can both be 'correct'
at the same time, used in different contexts.

Classes are all mental constructs and do not actually represent true
attributes of the classes. This is proved by the fact that different
cultural groups hav classed animal and natural phenomena differently.

Read Kant and the Platypus.

So why does it matter if the cultural groups of modern English speaking
people or scientists class animals differently than the Old English
speakers, using the same words? Old English speakers don't care,
they're all dead.

*snip*

The question isn't about fish, but about coelacanths. Your justification
for birds not being dinosaurs was that dinosaurs are extinct according
to the dictionary.

No, the reason I say birds are not dinosaurs is that dinosaurs are
extinct in fact, and that is reflected in the dictionary, restricting
our usage of the vernacular term.

That's circular. Dinosaurs are extinct in fact if and only if you say
that birds aren't dinosaurs. You can't use that as justification for
saying that birds aren't dinosaurs.

You want to say that birds are dinosaurs, right? I ask: what kind of
dinosaurs are birds? You would say: "relatively small, toothless,
winged, bidpedal, warm-blooded, hard-shelled-egg-laying, feathered". To
which I say: "Those are birds."

Of course. They're both. The sentence 'birds are dinosaurs' implies
that they are both at the same time. Just as whales are mammals,
eukaryotes and cetaceans at the same time.

Part 1 is true because you have arbitrarily decided that toothed birds
don't count.

What toothed birds?

The toothed birds that everyone except you says are birds.

What toothed birds? Name them!

Are toothed hens birds or are they dinosaurs again? Or crocodiles?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/02/060223083601.htm

Part 2 is true, but some non-avian dinosaurs had wings too.

Pterosaurs?

Pterosaurs, as it happens, aren't dinosaurs.

I know they aren't 'counted' as dinosaurs, which is actually kind of
silly.

Cladistics is silly? Why?

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: KT boundry event
    ... Word usage has everything to do with language. ... that the vernacular term "fish" is not generally used to refer to the ... dinosaurs is getting to be that way, ... record of birds by this definition actually predates, by just a bit, the ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: KT boundry event
    ... Yet they are mammals. ... Who said that being a fish requires an aquatic life? ... Your problem here is just like your problem with birds. ... Since there are no aquatic dinosaurs, that gives evidence, ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Meteor strike may not have killed dinos/demise began earlier
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    (sci.bio.evolution)
  • Re: KT boundry event
    ... The word 'fish' does the job it is asked to do. ... Absolutely unacceptable to say "birds are dinosaurs". ... are not 'insects', but no great harm is done in using this term by the ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: KT boundry event
    ... Yet they are mammals. ... Your problem here is just like your problem with birds. ... Modern humans are hominids too. ... Birds are not dinosaurs because dinosaurs are extinct and birds ...
    (talk.origins)
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