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

["David Marjanovic" <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "chris brochu" <cbrochu@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu>
Sent: Saturday, October 27, 2001 2:33 AM


> >[...] 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.
>
> Except that most of them don't learn it in school.

Indeed. I did learn in school that spiders aren't insects, but I was taught
explicitely that mushrooms _are_ plants ("ooh, strange plants they are, they
can't photosynthesize, so they are forced to look for other ecological
niches" -- their inability to photosynthesize was emphasized over and over
again as a special feature, making it sound like an apomorphy. ). The (old)
biology teacher I had at that time simply didn't believe me when I told her
otherwise. I didn't learn _anything_ about ichthyosaurs, mammoths, dinosaurs
or any paleontology simply because there wasn't enough _time_ and both
biology teachers* decided that something else was more urgent. From what I
heard from other classes of my school and from other schools it was largely
the same everywhere.
Evolution is taught, though :-)

*Paleontology is supposed to be taught twice in Austria, in the 8th and the
12th year of school. Teachers sometimes change.

> >      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.
>
> As opposed to the earlier system, which had a code that went through
> multiple editions as a result of the complexity.  Oh, wait - there
> are, what, four other codes out there?

Indeed, the zoological, botanical and bacteriological (and virological)
codes. This is the reason the BioCode was planned (I forgot its URL, the
latest draft -- from 1997 -- is online). Apparently work on it has ceased.

> >      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.

:-D
"Parabelievable" is too hard a word here, granted, but I think something in
this direction is appropriate. When should that peak have been?