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Swimming Dinosaurs & clado-speak



Alex,
Yes, Chris knows what you mean, but he's being a "naughty" strict cladist, even if he is trying to be humorous and/or make a point. :-)
Although I don't like the Feducciaries and their disdain for cladist analysis, I also don't like the strict cladists and their disdain for selective eclectic classification.
When strict cladists respond in this way, and infer that someone doesn't know the difference between dinosaurs (sensu stricto) and dinosaurs (sensu lato, i.e., including birds), I think they hurt not only cladistic classification (which I use up to a point), but also cladistic analytical methods (which I find very valuable).
This insistence that the rest of world recognize their terminology, and making fun of those who don't distinguish between dinosaurs (sensu stricto) and a cladistic dinosauria (sensu lato), will only backfire, and I would discourage such tactics. I could care less if it turns people off to strict cladistic classification, but when it casts a cloud over cladistic analytic methodologies, then it really starts to irritate me. Making fun, explicitly or implicitly, of those who don't specify "non-avian dinosaurs" should realize that it is not longer humorous, and the point they may trying to make is counterproductive. Alex was looking for information, and all he got was implicit criticism, and I don't think this is helpful.
--------Ken Kinman
********************************************************* 
From: "Leonidus A.K. Giganotosaurus" <alex@voyager.net>
Reply-To: alex@voyager.net
To: cbrochu@fmnh.org
CC: dinosaur@usc.edu
Subject: Re: Swimming Dinosaurs
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2000 16:41:56 -0700

chris brochu wrote:
>
> >Do any known dinosaurs show any ability for swimming?
>
> ducks, geese, grebes, coots, loons, penguins, phalaropes, gulls, terns,
> petrels, albatrosses, cormorants, darters, probably hesperornithiforms.....

Ok, I rephase! NON-AVIAN dinosaurs. You know what I mean.

--
Leonidus
alex@voyager.net

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