Re: KT boundry event

UC wrote:

Augray wrote:

On 31 May 2006 07:34:18 -0700, "UC" <uraniumcommittee@xxxxxxxxx> wrote
in <uranium-1149086058.604062.295140@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> :


John Harshman wrote:

UC wrote:


John Harshman wrote:

[snip]


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.

Well, they certainly didn't all die.

Then what are all those bodies?

More of your problems with logic. Let's try this as a syllogism:

We find many fossils of dinosaurs.
Therefore, dinosaurs are extinct.

Did that work for you? How about this one?:

We find many fossils of mammals.
Therefore, mammals are extinct.

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.

In fact, he didn't. That name was originated by someone else.

According to one sources I found it was Owen.

http://www.gwu.edu/~bygeorge/march19ByG!/evolution.html

"In 1861, paleontologists discovered the first recorded fossil of
Archaeopteryx Lithographica, named by geologist Sir Richard Owen, in
the "Solnhofen Limestone" deposits in southern Germany. "

Though another says it was Mayer:

http://internt.nhm.ac.uk/jdsml/nature-online/dino-directory/detail.dsml?Genus=Archaeopteryx&showTaxonomy=yes

Which source do you think is right?

If he did refer to it by the
vernacular term 'bird', it may well have been strictly for convenience.
It was not meant as a scientific name.

In fact, it was:

He applies to this fossil impression the term _Archaeopteryx
lithographica_; and although the probability is great that the
class of Birds was represented by more than one genus at the
period of the deposit of the lithographic slate...

- Owen, R. 1863. On the Archeopteryx [sic] of von Meyer, with a
description of the fossil remains of a long-tailed species from
the lithographic stone of Solenhofen [sic]. Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society of London 153:33-47 & plates
1-4.

[snip]



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