Re: Class-less dinosaurs

[Crpntr@ix.netcom.com (Kenneth Carpenter)]

Philip Biglow wrote:

> Since then, work by Gauthier, and
>by Sereno, among many others, have shown that the members of the
>proposed Class DINOSAURIA do indeed share unique traits
>(synapomorphies).  Further, birds are now generally accepted to
>be theropod dinosaurs....

>Birds are in the Class DINOSAURIA, not AVES.  AVES is dead.  Someone
>get a shovel and let's all go out and bury it.


True, from the dinosaurs' point of view the characters uniting it to the 
birds are synapomorphies, but from the birds point of view, those 
characters are symplesiomorphic (shared primitive characters).  Why not 
recognize all the autapomorphies that birds share, thus keeping Aves?  
(Yeah, I know I'll catch flack over this one, so what else is new?)