Re: Dinosauria---Rejected Name?

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

    You guys are scaring me.  You would *really* prefer Ornithopsida, 
rather than a familiar name like Dinosauria.  Is this forum going to become 
the OML (Ornithopsid Mailing List)?
    Sorry about misspelling Papilioniformes, but that would be a horrible 
replacement name for Lepidoptera.  Besides it is also being used for a much 
smaller clade of about 6 butterfly families.
    I am for *some* change and standardization, but this kind of stuff 
makes me look like a nomenclatural conservative.  This is a taxonomic 
Pandora's Box, and Michael Benton is just the first of many who will be 
objecting to the phylocode experiment.  Extend the problems we have been 
seeing just for dinosaurs to the entire classification of life, and we won't 
have time to do science any more.  We'll be arguing over names 24-7.  How 
depressing would that be?
       -------- Ken    :-(

P.S.  Changing Cyanophyta to Cyanobacteria showed the gradual, 
self-correcting nature of science and taxonomy.  If such change isn't done 
in moderation, the whole communicative purpose for nomenclature will be 
lost.  I don't blame Benton for being alarmed.


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