Re: What are you sitting at?


Richard Forrest wrote:
UC wrote:

Right....

So the fossils themselves have increased in complexity merely because
we have refined the label we attach to them.

No. I'm talking about looking at fossils of more primitive organisms
and using a term that applies to the more complex organism.


Well, no. I was talking about the word "fossil".
It has decreased in the scope of what it describes.

What about the Moeritheres?

http://www.dinosoria.com/mammifere/moeritherium.jpg

Should we call them elephants?

No.....

So what do we call them?

Moeritheres

Why?

Because they're not exactly elephants.....


And why on earth is this relevant? They are not even ancestral to
modern elephants.


No.



In that case, I suggest that you think clearly about what you are
trying to say, and express yourself in terms which the rest of us can
understand.

Applying a term that refers to a modern animal to its more primitive
ancestor. the term that is used to arefer to the modern animal carries
with it all the characters that typify that animal. That's why the
Moeritheres cannot be called 'elephants'.


Has anybody suggested that?
On the other hand, I'd be quite happy if someone referred to a wooly
mammoth as an elephant. Or Elephas gigas, or any of a number of now
extinct taxa of elephant, some of which may be ancestral to modern
elephants.




I have. I generally do it myself. I still call it a 'car' even when the
engine is removed.

Fine, I agree, but it depends on what you're going to do with it. We
all know that cars start out as separate parts which are assembled into
cars at a factory, then eventually deteriorate into heaps of junk, a
mere collection of parts.


So if I look at a cow in a field, and admire the beauty of the animal,
it's a cow. If I look at a cow in a field, and think "Mmm. I'll kill
that cow and eat it" I should not call it a cow.

I call this obejct I'm sitting at a "desk". If I am planning to break
it up with a sledgehammer and burn it, it's no longer a desk.

Wierd argument.

Yes. Intentionality and use bears on correct naming only if
intentionality and use bears on identity. For instance, I'd say that
only human intention and use makes the difference between a common goat
and a (literal) scapegoat.

However, if you take a car to pieces and then reassemble the same
pieces in working order, it is not misleading to talk about "the car"
when it is in pieces - not quite. But if you have no practical
intention of reassembling the pieces, it isn't a car any more, is it?

Interestingly, English-language names of common meat at table are more
or less the Norman French names of the animals, whereas the names for
live animals are Anglo-Saxon. This somewhat reflects the division of
labour. So your platter of beef or mutton or pork is in fact a piece
of cow or sheep or pig, but in a different language.

.

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