RE: Archosaur Origins...was:MESENOSAURUS ERRATA

["Jaime A. Headden" <qilongia@yahoo.com>]

Tracy Ford (dino.hunter@home.com)> wrote:

<Therefore science must stop because a term has been set in 'stone'! Don't try 
and change things!
So what ever you do, don't change things. Just because of a term has been used 
for centuries does
NOT mean that term can be redefined.>

  Aves can be redefined, but you ask about 3 billion adult people to change 
their mind on what a
bird should be. Aves was formed within a phylogenetic framework to express a 
group of animals who
also possess a vernacular aspect. "Bird" is only the English word for this, 
"vogel" the German,
"ornithoi" the Greek, etc....

<That's right, the public doesn't need to be educated or informed. Leave them 
ALONE! Don't put
feathers on dinosaurs because the public doesn't believe it. And to a lot of 
them Mammoths are
dinosaurs.>

  I know, tragic, isn't it? It's a pity people are so stupid and moronic that 
they must be
corrected to the proper concept of "bird" to include *Ankylosaurus*, because we 
all know it's a
bird. Or as George said, "Why not?"

  Why?

<Eh? But doesn't Romer and Huene have priority over all that? That was set way 
back when when
there wasn't an Avemetatarsalia and their work has priority.>

  Were talking coinage of taxa, not whose view came first. And Huxley and Marsh 
predate Huene on
that measure.

<Wait a minute, you just said don't change things, and now your saying go 
ahead?>

  Nope. Not what I said at all. I advocate keeping the term Aves to apply to 
birds, George wants
to redefine Aves to include all dinosaurs (ignoring Dinosauriformes' usage) ... 
my advocacy is a
matter of priority. If you think the term Aves has priority over the concept of 
a feathered,
warmblodded, flighted or essentially winged (or descended from a winged 
animal), then why apply
this to animals that are not winged, or feathered and flighted? not to mention 
quadrupedal? No.
The essence of the term Aves has a priority that does not include using 
conventional, non-avian
dinosaurs in it.

<Just because it's the Linnaean system and it was set in stone we can't use it 
because of the new
CRAM IT DOWN YOUR THROAT Cladistist. Its ok to cram it down everyone's throat? 
But try and change
BIRDS...>

  I'd hate to be thought of as a cladist, really. I'm not a cladist.

=====
Jaime A. Headden

  Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhr-gen-ti-na
  Where the Wind Comes Sweeping Down the Pampas!!!!

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