Re: crocodylians, amphibians ... (was Sarcosuchus)

[chris brochu <cbrochu@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu>]

> Dear All,
>     I strongly disagree with Tom Holtz that this situation is 
> analogous to calling a titanothere "a rhino", or calling a pterosaur 
> "a dinosaur".  I don't know of any prominent scientist who has so 
> grossly misclassified such reptiles in many decades (and the public 
> should indeed be educated on such matters).


A closer analogy is with calling a lemur a "monkey."  No scientist 
would make that mistake  (and no scientist made the mistake of 
calling Sarcosuchus a "crocodilian" in this particular case at first, 
either.  Long  story there.)




>     Crocodilia/Crocodylia is a completely different matter, as this 
> taxon has long included a more inclusive "crocodyliform" content, 
> and it is the fault of strict cladists for restricting the usage of 
> this term.


Oh, no!  People are getting precise!  Someone has to stop them before 
they render our classification universally precise!  We may actually 
be able to communicate with each other if something isn't done!

Soon, they'll be telling us that pterosaurs and mammoths aren't 
dinosaurs!.  And what do you mean mushrooms aren't plants, or that 
spiders aren't insects?  And are you serious when you say that chimps 
aren't monkeys?  You mean popular terms are less precise than 
scientific equivalents, even if the word  is spelled or spoken the 
same way?  Well, then, you scientists will just have to change your 
taxonomy.  I'm too laz...er, too busy to learn new words and stuff.

You geologists will have to stop using sequence stratigraphy - you're 
redefining time-honored formation names and confusing those of use 
reliant on older  textbooks. And the rest of the world will just have 
to stop using that pesky metric system while we're at it - we  here 
in the US just can't be bothered to learn it.




> The same goes for the even more short-sided redefinition of the term 
> Amphibia (especially the most restricted redefinition to the crown 
> group lissamphibians).  And try explaining to your fellow 
> non-cladists (much less the public) the differences between 
> tetrapods and stegocephalians, and watch their eyes roll or glaze 
> over.


Been  there, done  that.  Their eyes don't glaze over.  They 
understand.  If you haven't had luck with that, you haven't explained 
it very well.

What you view as "fragmentation" looks to the rest of us like an 
attempt to hold onto a typological world view that died 150 years 
ago, even if taxonomy is only now catching up.  And  again, this 
"fragmentation" is not as confusing as you make it sound.  This is 
experience talking.

I agree that taxonomy is secondary to phylogeny reconstruction.  But 
if we're  not using the words precisely, what's the point of using 
them at all?

chris

--
------------------------
Christopher A. Brochu
Assistant Professor
Department of Geoscience
University of Iowa
Iowa City, IA 52242

christopher-brochu@uiowa.edu
319-353-1808 phone
319-335-1821 fax

www.geology.uiowa.edu/faculty/brochu