Re: KT boundry event


uraniumcommittee@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
neverbetter wrote:
uraniumcommit...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
Ken Shackleton wrote:
uraniumcommittee@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
Arkalen wrote:
uraniumcommittee@xxxxxxxxx a écrit :
Windy wrote:

*snip*

And you don't seem to think the term "fish" is meaningless, although
even its everyday usage refers to a group that's more messy,
ill-defined and all-encompassing than "dinosaurs, including birds"
could ever be.

So? The word 'fish' does the job it is asked to do. We distinguish fish
from whales, squids, snails, clams, etc.


Five hundred years ago the word "fish" included all those, especially
whales. The reason it doesn't anymore in most contexts is because there
was a campaign by scientists and others to make everyone realize whales
were mammals, and shouldn't be included in the same group as what we now
know as "fish" (and as an indication of how messy it is, I wanted to say
something more specific, but there isn't... While you can say that
birds=neornithes, or birds=aves, or dinosaurs=dinosauria, you can't say
any such thing about fish ! The closest would be "teleosts", which
excludes so many things we call fish it's pointless...).

I don't follow that last part.

All John Harshman and others are saying, is that we should campaign to
make people say "birds are dinosaurs", in the same way we beat into the
heads of schoolchildren that whales are not fish and spiders are not
insects. Because it is makes people more informed about biology.

Absolutely unacceptable to say "birds are dinosaurs".

Why is this unacceptable? *Dinosaurs* includes a very large group of
diverse animals indeed. It is clear that modern birds are descended
from a particular subset of dinosaurs...so why the problem? It's that
same as saying "dogs are mammals". It seems to me [as a layperson] that
the group identified as dinosaurs is as large, diverse and distinct as
the group that we refer to as mammals.

Of course spiders
are not 'insects', but no great harm is done in using this term by the
layman when talking to the neighbors about pests.

No great harm.....but why perpetuate unnecessary ignorance?

I think there are far worse errors of science...in the grand scheme of
things it hardly matters.

But in the grand scheme of things it matters a lot that birds aren't
called dinosaurs?

Spiders are functionally closer to insects than birds are to dinosaurs.

Hmm... let's see

Off the top of my head:

insects have six legs spiders have eight
birds have four limbs dinosaurs have four limbs

insects have wings which are modified gills spiders don't have
wings
birds have wings which are modified forearms dinosaurs had forearms
similar to bird wings

insects have compound eyes spiders have multiple simple eyes
birds have typically vertebrate eyes dinosaurs had typically
vertebrate eyes

insects don't spin webs spiders spin webs
birds build nests dinosaurs built nests

insects lay eggs which develope through three stages: larva, pupa and
adult
spiders lay eggs which produce miniature adults

birds lay eggs from which juveniles hatch
dinosaurs laid eggs from which juveniles hatch

insect bodies are divided into head, thorax and abdomen
spider bodies are divided into head and abdomen

birds have bodies with a head at one end, four limbs and an admittedly
vestigial tail at the other
dinosaur had bodies with a head at one end, four limbs and a tail at
the other


Do you see a pattern here?

RF


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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 ...
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  • Re: KT boundry event
    ... I got the notion earlier that you accept the evidence that birds have ... dinosaurs" and "birds ARE dinosaurs". ... Fish have left descendants that inlude whales, ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: KT boundry event
    ... Spiders are functionally closer to insects than birds are to dinosaurs. ...
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  • Re: KT boundry event
    ... I know you won't accept it, but Mark *is* a fish. ... whose distant ancestors were not men. ... doing the analogous thing with birds. ... analogy to calling birds dinosaurs is calling whales mammals. ...
    (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)
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