Re: Fw: Most popular/common dinosaur misconceptions

[mike@miketaylor.org.uk (Mike Taylor)]

T. Michael Keesey writes:
> It's not that scientists are redefining terms like "planet" and
> "dinosaur"; it's that they were never rigorously defined in the first
> place. Rigorous definitions are going to include and/or exclude some
> traditional content. But it's okay, because that traditional content
> never delimited a scientifically useful group to begin with. The
> traditional usages are just accidents of history, and it's high time
> to move on.

Hmm.  I think that now it _is_ time to move on and accept that
Dinosauria includes birds.  But we may as well be honest with
ourselves and admit that the scientists who made it so screwed up.
Everyone knew what "dinosaur" meant.  It would have been better to
discard the taxon Dinosauria when it became apparent that it was
paraphyletic, define a new name for the clade (_Iguanodon_ +
_Megalosaurus_) and let everyone keep on using the well-established
vernacular term to mean what it always meant.

But I realise that ship has sailed.  Same with Reptilia.

 _/|_    ___________________________________________________________________
/o ) \/  Mike Taylor  <mike@miketaylor.org.uk>  http://www.miketaylor.org.uk
)_v__/\  "Never write $$a[$i] when you mean ${$a[$i]} or @$a[$i] when
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