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

["Ken Kinman" <kinman@hotmail.com>]

     I don't understand why Chris continues to look at this as:  us 
scientists versus them non-scientists.  If it were that clearcut, then we 
would just have to keep educating the public about things they should have 
learned in school----spiders are not insects, mushrooms are not plants, 
ichthyosaurs and mammoths are not dinosaurs.
     Unfortunately, cladistic classifications have already become so 
"precisely" complex and confusing that a separate code is now in the works 
as an attempt to straighten it all out.  I think you would be shocked to 
learn how unpopular cladistics is among botanists (outside of the small 
group pushing for cladistic botany).  Even among zoologists, invertebrate 
people tend to be more skeptical than the vertebrate people (although the 
latter contain a lot of people like Dodson and Benton).
     Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I think cladism has peaked and 
it's probably all going to be down hill from here.  My main goal is to keep 
cladistic "analysis" from also getting drug down by the reaction to overly 
split cladistic "classification".
     Crocodylia sensu lato will no doubt continue to enjoy wide usage, and 
when the cladistic experiment of the late 20th Century finally bursts its 
bubble, we will have to regroup and try to save the parts of cladistic 
philosophy really worth saving.  We'll be far too busy with "damage control" 
to worry about nitpicking about crocodylians vs. crocodyliforms.  A lot of 
biologists would be happy to see cladistics as a whole "crash and burn", but 
I am not one of them, as it would only set the pendulum swinging too far in 
another direction.  So it goes.
               TGIF,   Ken


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