Re: KT boundry event


John Harshman wrote:
UC wrote:

John Harshman wrote:

(snip)

Even if we accept your numbers, so what? Maybe we're talking about that
.01%.

Question-begging.

Again, you seem not to know what question-begging is; or perhaps you
just aren't equipped to detect it. Let's see: most animals are insects,
therefore a dog is an insect. That's your reasoning.

There are several kinds of question-begging. The one used here is:

"Dinosaurs are not extinct."
"Birds are dinousars."
"Therefore, dinosaurs are not extinct."

In this clever manipulation, you have 'defined' dinosaurs into
existence.

That's nothing like the reasoning I have used.

Incredibly, that's false.

Incredibly in the literal sense?

The question is whether
birds are dinosaurs.

The question is whether dinosaurs are extinct, no?

If you like. To answer that we have to know if birds are dinosaurs. If
they are, dinosaurs aren't extinct.

You CANNOT use the argument "birds are dinosaurs" to prove that
"dinosaurs are not extinct", and then attempt to support the assertion
"birds are dinosaurs" by saying "dinosaurs are not extinct".

You say they aren't because dinosaurs are extinct.

I say they CAN'T be, because

1) dinosaurs are extinct

and

2) dinosaurs were quite different creatures.

Would you agree that the first part is vacuous?

Have you seen any Plesiosaurs lately? Tyrannosauridae?

"Definition

The taxon "Dinosauria" was formally named by the English scientist
Richard Owen in 1842 as "a distinct tribe or suborder of Saurian
reptiles".[1] The term is derived from the Greek words δεινός
(deinos - "terrible", "fearsome" or "formidable") and σαύρα
(saura; "lizard" or "reptile"). Owen chose it to express his awe at the
size and majesty of the extinct animals, not out of fear or trepidation
at their size and often-formidable arsenal of teeth and claws."

Do you note the word 'extinct' there?

But this is not part of the definition of "dinosaur". It's observational
only.

It's what we in philosophy call 'empirical'.

Call it what you will. The point here is that "extinctness" is not part
of the definition of "dinosaur".

Not analytically, but empirically true.

If we discovered a living animal that
would otherwise be called a dinosaur, we would call it a dinosaur and
decide that they weren't extinct after all. Do you agree?

Yes, but there is none. Loch Ness Plesiosaurs?

If so, then we can't say "birds are not dinosaurs because dinosaurs are
extinct", because there is nothing in the definition of dinosaurs that
requires them to be extinct.

But they ARE. You redefine facts. It's a fact. See above.

Thus a living animal could, in principle,
be a dinosaur.

COULD, but ISN'T. Just like the case with aliens from Mars.

We could say "because birds are not dinosaurs, dinosaurs
are extinct"; that's empirical. But the first statement is legalism,
nothing more.

Non sequitur. Birds not being dinosaurs is not the reason dinosaurs
went extinct.

So all the weight has to attach to your claim #2, that dinosaurs are
quite different from birds. Fine. In what ways are they different?

As a group, dinosaurs were large. Birds, as a group, are much smaller.

The morphology, or anatomical characteristics, of birds and dinosaurs
are vastly different.

Birds are all wram-blooded, and there is some question as to whether
dinosaurs were. Most probably were not.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Triceratops_1.jpg

And how, if birds are members of Aves,

Nope. Individual species are members of Aves, not 'birds'. Gallius
gallus is a member of Aves, but neither 'bird' nor 'chicken' is. A
chicken is a bird and a bird is an animal.

and dinosaurs are members of
Dinosauria, and Dinosauria includes Aves, can your claim be true? How
can a subset of some group be distinct from the group?

If birds are dinosaurs, then dinosaurs are not extinct. You have
it exactly backwards.

Sorry, does not work that way. That's question-begging. Something has
to be 'not extinct' before it can be anything at all.

That made no sense to me. You will have to explain yourself. (But you
probably won't, if experience is any guide.)

Why do I say birds are dinosaurs? Because your dictionary properly
defines "dinosaur" as "member of Dinosauria", and birds are members of
Dinosauria.

Nope. 'Aves' can be members of 'Dinosauria', but 'birds' cannot.

Isn't Aves made up of birds?

Nope. 'Bird' is a vernacular term that has nothing to do with the
Linnaean terms.

This is, I suppose, your mixing rule again.
But this is a rule you just made up. It's not a rule. Humans are
mammals. Do you agree?

Depends on what you mean. If you mean merely 'animals with mammary
glands' then yes. If you mean 'Mammalia' as a clade, then no. If you
want to talk about the memners of 'Mammalia', then you have to use the
Linnaean term "Homo sapiens sapiens".

You have lamely attempted to falsify this by appeal to
something Alan Feduccia once said, or to something G. G. Simpson once
said. And then you have said it doesn't matter because "bird" is
vernacular while "Dinosauria" is scientific, and you can't mix terms.

That's correct. Linnaean or vernacular, one or the other.

But that's a rule you just made up in this thread. Why should anyone be
bound by it?

Common sense, for one.

And then, which brought us here, you said that birds can't be dinosaurs
because dinosaurs are extinct and birds aren't. And that's the circular
reasoning.

Dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago. A few primitive creatures,
which were neither 'birds' nor 'dinosaurs' (because these vernacular
terms do not apply to them) survived. These creatures were the
ancestors of what we today call birds.

Oh, now "dinosaur" is suddenly a vernacular term again, when you've
spent much of the last week or two denying that it is. You really can't
remember from moment to moment what you're arguing, can you?

It creates problems, no doubt about that, to use this term, since there
IS no true 'vernacular' term for the Dinosauria. In this text I am
using 'dinosaur' it AS IF it were.

Let's look. Dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago. Do you agree that
if birds were dinosaurs this would not be true?

Dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago. All of them.

So you can't use it as
support for your claim that birds aren't dinosaurs. We first have to
establish whether birds are dinosaurs, by other means, before we can say
that dinosaurs are extinct.

Nope. Circular reasoning. We cannot establish that they be dinosaurs by
other means. We cannot define dinosaurs into existence.

Now you say that the survivors were neither
birds nor dinosaurs, and that they were "primitive". On what basis do
you claim that they weren't birds, and on what basis do you claim that
they were primitive?

Why do you have to force them into one of only two possibilities:
bird/dinosaur? There is NO verncular term for such animals and never
was.

Of course it is, when we're talking about vernacular speech. The
vernacular is whatever people think it is.

That is not true, and you know it. That is a gross misunderstanding of
what 'vernacular' means

That's not true and you know it. The vernacular is what people speak.

Over-simplified, gross distortion. The vernacular is what people speak
consistent with tradition and education in that tradition. it is
opposed to Latin or other 'learned' languages.

OK. So what does tradition tell us about birds?

Tradition tells us about words....

Wait for it...


It seems to tell us that
Archaeopteryx is one.

Red herring. I was talking about tradition in the use of WORDS....

So was I. Traditionally, we use "bird" to refer to Archaeopteryx. Do you
deny that?

Absolutely I deny that. What great English linguistic tradition is
connected with obscure fossils from Germany?

Dunno how great it is, but the fossils are hardly obscure -- they're
among the most famous fossils in the world, and among the few that most
educated people have heard of. And the linguistic tradition would
involve everyone from Richard Owen through the present day, other than
you. What exactly keeps this from being a tradition?

Owen named it Archaeopteryx lithographica. If he did refer to it by the
vernacular term 'bird', it may well have been strictly for convenience.
It wa snot meant as a scientific name.

That way, we can understand what was written about 400 years ago:

[snip spammish posting of Hamlet's soliloquy for no apparent reason]

It's intelligible, almost every word, no?

It's one of Shakespeare's more intelligible bits, yes. You will have to
make your point, if you have one.

Linguistic change can cause confusion.

No, the point is whether the statements "dogs are wolves" and "birds are
dinosaurs" can be easily understood without extensive explanation.

What do you mean by 'explanation'?

I mean more words added by the speaker to clarify his meaning. What do
you mean?

Do you mean "severe qualification" as I have repeatedly stated?

Possibly. I'm not clear on what "severe qualification" means to you, but
I suppose that "extensive explanation" is similar. And of course it
isn't necessary.

Of course it is.

"Buicks are Cadillacs".

Nobody knows what you mean when you say that.

RIGHT! Nobody knows what the *** you mean when you say "birds are
dinosaurs" or "dogs are wolves", either!

On the contrary. I find that everyone other than you knows what I mean.

Argumentum ad populum.


So in that case and
explanation would be necessary. But they do know what I mean when I say
"birds are dinosaurs", so no explanation is necessary.

Nobody understands this nonsense.

I have quite a bit of experience in saying this

So what? What does that prove? Hitler had a lot of experience in saying
what he said! That didn't make it true!

, much more than you do.

Irrelevant.

So why are you the expert on whether people understand it? It seems to
me that I would be the expert.

Ha.

Other people are smarter than you are.

Non sequitur

No, I think it follows quite nicely. Let's be explicit:

Premises:
1. Other people have no trouble understanding things you find difficult.
2. Ability to understand is an index of smartness.

Conclusion:
Other people are smarter than you are.

Looks like a valid syllogism to me. Conclusion follows from premises.

On the contrary, I pierce through the fog that surrounds most people's
miserably inadequate understanding of language, even that of academics
(spit).

You don't understand what "non sequitur means", then.

Yes, it means "does not follow from the premises".

Right. So instead of attacking the premises or conclusion, as you did,
you have to attack the connection between the premises and conclusion.
That's why I think you don't understand what it means, however well you
can parrot the definition. Ask any high school teacher whether ability
to parrot indicates understanding.

Ask any liberal Democrat whether ability to parrot "No blood for oil"
or "not in my name" indicates understanding.

I suppose I could. But why?

Part of learning is indeed rote memorization.

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

Does that song pop into your head?

Sure it does. Is this eventually going to lead somewhere, perhaps back
to some relevant point?

What you have done
here is to deny the conclusion. Presumably that means you deny one or
more premises. "Non sequitur" doesn't just mean "wrong". It's a
particular sort of wrong, in which the conclusion is not supported even
if we accept the premises. What you have said here is irrelevant to the
question of whether what I said is a non sequitur.

You offer no proof, just distortions and ad hominem attacks.

We were discussing whether what I said is a non sequitur. You have not
addressed that question at all. That's typical.


I know damed well what no sequitur means.

"All men are mortal"

"Socrates is a man"

"Socrates has testicles"

This is an example of non sequitur.

Actually, one could argue that the conclusion follows directly from the
second premise

No, it does not.

Yes? How many men do you know without testicles? Commonly, eunuchs are
not referred to as "men", in my experience.

, so this isn't a non sequitur either.

They could have been lost in a war...

A logical possibility. You could argue that "has testicles" is not a
defining characteristic of a man. But you picked a pretty poor example.

I didn't pick it as a defining characteristic. You lie an awful lot.
This will be noted on your permanent record.

But never mind. If
you know what the term means, why have you proven incapable of applying it?

[snip]

Go on. Who are the educated, and how shall we recognize them?

They know how to read and write.

And how do we tell whether they know this? Who is the judge of whether a
person can read and write? I suspect that you are the judge, right?

Who is the one that has professional editing experience?

And
I suspect that I am not, right? So this is just the principle that you
are the sole judge of everything, slightly disguised.

No English
words would be allowed in any scientific paper.

In Germany, Latin was used for philosophy and science until the late
18th c. See Blackall, Eric (1978). The Emergence of German as a
Literary Language. [Second Edition.] Ithica and London: Cornell
University Press.

Do you have a point? Should we go back to Latin? But hey, Latin wasn't
designed for science.

Actually, it was adapted for that use quite some time ago...

Ah, languages can be adapted to new uses? Why didn't you say so? Hey, I
know. Let's adapt English for scientific use. We'll write our papers in
English, inventing specialized terms only when necessary.



Why should we use that either? Shouldn't we invent
an entirely new language explicitly for science?

It already exists: Latin.

Nonsense. Latin was not invented for science.

Linnaean terminology and medical terminology is based on Latin and
Greek. Music and art use Italian for the most part. Other disciplines
may use other languages, but I am not sure what those languages may be.
Perhaps German is used in some fields.

All of which is irrelevant.

Totally relevant.

Good. Then you will be able to explain the relevance. Now:

Latin words are no more
precise than English words.

They can be coined and defined any way you want, at will, because Latin
is a dead language.

So can any term you like. Being a dead language has nothing to do with it.

Of course it has everything to do with it. Living languages have
rights, so to speak.

Please defend that claim.

Living language users have squatters' rights. You cannot unilaterally
change the meanings of words in a living language. They'll just
lunchtime forgetfulness clear waterfowl pedestrian manifold.

Are you seriously proposing that we all go
back to writing in Latin? How come you don't write your scholarly papers
in Latin?

Linnaean terminology and medical terminology are based on Latin and
Greek. Is this news to you?

No, it's just irrelevant to me and to this discussion.

Not at all.

Please explain the relevance. Now:

It's been part of the whole discussion for quite some time.

I suppose we could keep
the grammar -- or could we? It certainly wasn't intended for use in
science; maybe we need new grammar too.

Or maybe an old one, like Latin.

Why? Latin grammar wasn't designed for scientific discourse.

In what language was Newton's Principia written?

Non-responsive. In what language was Origin of Species written?

We're talking about terminology. Species have had Latin-based formal
names for roughly 350 years.

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/linnaeus.html

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/images/systema.jpg

So?


How does
Principia being in Latin mean that it's a better language for science
than English, or that it was designed for science?

My point is that the Latin was used for philosophy and science until
recently (about 1700) in English-speaking countries, and until rather
recently in Germany (1780). Leibnitz wrote in Latin and French, I
believe. Latin and French were the dominant languages of the court and
of philosophy and science.

Again, so?

The 'vernacular' is what is neither Latin nor French.

But "birds are dinosaurs" is neither Latin nor French. It must therefore
be vernacular. So?

Are you always this obtuse?

Science uses English all the time. When a common word won't serve, and
only then, we invent a new technical term. But common words serve quite
frequently. This "never intended" thing is ridiculous.

Certainly not.

Nice argument again.

It's no worse that your mere bald assertion above it.

Do you dispute any of my claims of fact above?

Yes, of course.


Which ones? Do you claim
that science doesn't uses English?

It's hard to call it 'English' when species are named using Linnaean
Latinate/Greco terminology

Really? I suppose that loan words are forbidden in your world?


That we invent new words when common
ones don't serve?

Based on Latin and Greek roots, of course.

Sometimes. Other times we invent them in other ways. There's no rule
requiring Latin or Greek (except in Linnean terms, and even there we can
get around it easily by latinizing anything we like, sometimes merely by
declaring it latinized).

Right.

'Television'. 'Microscope'.
'Phonograph'. German is different. It uses vernacular German roots for
new inventions. 'Fernsehen'. 'Vergrösser'. 'Schallplatte'.

Laser. Quark. Masiakasaurus knopfleri. Natural selection.

See? Like Masiakasaurus knopfleri. It's got a little piece of latinized
Greek ("-saurus") and a latin genitive ending ("-i"), but the rest is
not Latin or Greek. And the other words have no Latin at all, but
they're still scientific terms.

Ahemm...we were talking about terms for inventions. I gave the
examples:

'Television'. 'Microscope'. 'Phonograph'.

I noted that German does not follow this practice, at least not often:

'Fernsehen'. 'Vergrösser'. 'Schallplatte'.

That common words serve quite frequently?

Words like 'has' or 'be' or 'consists of'? Sure!

Don't be disingenuous. Words like "sand" or "bird" or "star" too.

Nah...

So your contention is that "sand" is not a word commonly used in
technical papers on geology, that "star" is not commonly used in
technical papers on astronomy, and that "bird" is not commonly used in
technical papers on ornithology. Is that correct?

Astronomers use 'object' a lot, I know. The case is somewhat different,
though, from biology. In any event, when they looked back in time, at
very distant objects whose light is billions of years old, they found
that the objects were utterly unlike the familiar stars and galaxies
near Earth. These old ojects were given new names, because they were
more primitive:

http://www.sdss.org/news/releases/20000413.qso.html

Quasar.

If you grant
all those, then the idea that "never intended" can have any importance
as a criterion must necessarily disappear.

I'm talking about species terminology, primarily, and how clever of you
to try to redirect the cross-examination to irrelevencies.

No, you aren't talking about species terminology. You have hardly ever
mentioned any species. You are mostly talking about groups of many
species, like dinosaurs and birds.

[snip]


This bears repeating: when you're talking about vernacular usage, what
other people do is the only criterion.

Nope. Try again. You have no understanding of what 'vernacular'
actually means.

The usual thing to do would be to explain why I'm wrong. Just asserting
that I'm wrong is pointless, though it seems to be your only skill.

I have explained it, numerous times. See any good unabridged
dictionary, to save me the trouble of repeating myself. See, in
particular, 1 d:

" d: being the name of a plant or animal in the vernacular language or
common native speech as distinguished from the Latin nomenclature of
scientific classification *black alder and winterberry are vernacular
names of Ilex verticillata*

What's your point? We agree about that. But why is any particular name
the vernacular name? Because people call things by that name.

Duh....yes....AND it's official!

?

[snip]





.