Re: Sarcosuchus

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

Dear All,
    Just in case anyone misunderstood my post script, it was not directed 
at Silvio.  I was teasing the strict cladists (in general) for being so hard 
on reporters about cladistic details (alligators vs. alligatoroids; or 
crocodylians vs. crocodyliforms).
   The point being that cladistic nitpicking about these minor points is 
unfair, since the confusion is the result of their own cladistic splintering 
of classifications.  And I call it nitpicking because it is trivial compared 
to educating people that spiders are not insects (and so on).
                  -------Ken
********************************************
> From: Silvio Renesto <renesto@mailserver.unimi.it>
> To: kinman@hotmail.com
> CC: dinosaur@usc.edu
> Subject: Re: Sarcosuchus
> Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2001 08:56:36 +0100
>
> At 16.12 29/10/01, you wrote:
> >
> >P.S.  However, if you are a reporter, don't call it an "alligator", or 
> the
> >strict cladists are liable to think you don't know the difference between 
> a
> >spider and an insect.   :-)
> >
> I should be a palaeontologist (at least I try to convince myself of this
> also and who pays my salary ), who, in a really hectic daywork, found two
> minutes to post a quick message , so I was VERY inaccurate. Apologies.
> Anyway my colleague and friend Fabio Dalla Vecchia has clarified it on the
> list MUCH BETTER THAN ME.
>
> All the best
>                                       Silvio Renesto


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