Re: Philidor: No Class (was RE: Avian stem-group (was: BCF))

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

Philidor (philidor11@snet.net) wrote (or defended? -- pun intended):

<And, by the way, the acceptance of the idea that dinosaurs are not
reptiles and that birds descended from dinosaurs are two of the greatest
paleontological achievements ever.  Don't knock it.  Gee.>

  Sorry, but the idea that anything was a reptile was hurt by the idea of
a biological constant attributed to reptiles. The greatest acheivment was
to provide that reptiles did not have a biological constant, but this has
hardly deterred folks from designating them and sticking to the quagmire
that is the difference between a scientific reptile (member of clade
Reptilia) and a vernacular reptile (something scaly, slimy, that crawls on
its belly or slinks around -- you can thank the 11-15th century Christians
for this view, in attempts to villianize attributes of disgusting, lower
creatures from higher purer things, like man).

  That the majority of systematists view Reptilia as a pure clade still
does not agree with historical purists who argue that birds and reptiles
are essentially dichotomous, and this is thanks to Lamarck and Linné.
Cuvier worked in the framework, but hardly examined it, which disfavors my
opinion of the man somewhat, but not his acheivements. No argument that
birds and reptiles are distinct essentially arrives from a scientific
basis, as they reflect historical or aesthetic reasons for the existence
of either; the naming of clades, rather than just terms for groups,
utilized these terms in nearly explicit sense, but usually exlusionary of
taxa _later found to be included_. One then must argue a system of
effective paraphyly to account for the dichotomy, or accept a logical
lineage of descent, which must be monophyletic. That taxonomy should
reflect lineage is an old argument, but is hurt by aethetists who argue
that things should be as they feel they are, and this brings up the entire
dirty history of religious-motivated views on lower versus higher
organisms. This is where he get the quandary of weighting and more
"important" features in the systematic arsenal. That what is important for
one but can be ignored by another, and that none of us know the true
picture, argues that none of us can see the truth, or know it exists, just
argue for perfect agreement. This is parsimony, and its the #1 best tool
in systematics.

  Using Jefferson on a horse, a sauropod and elephant femur are remarkably
similar, as are an elephant and rhino, but they are hardly similar or
equivalent. Same argument allowed Linné to put bats into his Aves, which
is a silly idea if he even looked at a bat close up for one second. (That
may admittedly be too harsh of the man.) But my point is it's a flawed
axiom in practice.

  Cheers,

=====
Jaime A. Headden

  Little steps are often the hardest to take.  We are too used to making leaps 
in the face of adversity, that a simple skip is so hard to do.  We should all 
learn to walk soft, walk small, see the world around us rather than zoom by it.

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