RE: Monotremes

[Anthony Docimo <keenir@hotmail.com>]

>  > > > >> >Dinosauria has been everything from a suborder (original
>  > > > >> >designation)
>  > > > >> >to a class. But why would the mere fact that his sort of thing 
> goes
>  > > > >> >on
>  > > > >> >a lot excuse it?
>  > > > >>
>  > > > >>   Why would the mere fact that it goes on, condemn it?
>  > > > >
>  > > > >It doesn't. What condemns it is that it's meaningless.
>  > > >
>  > > > if you say "monotreme"/"monotrema", I know you're talking about a 
> mammal
>  > > > that lays eggs rather than having live birth.
>  > >
>  > >But only from the parochial view of the Neogene.
>  >
>  > Whereas if we use the view from the Cambrian or the
>  > Cambiferous(sp), there's no such problem.  ;)
>
> What?  No!  The view from _any_ absurdly short slice of geological
> time will be parochial.

ah.  I thought it was parochial because it was from the perspective of the 
Neogene.  (whereas the Cambrian, for example, is before the arrival of *any* 
sort of vaguely mammalian things)

sort of the anthropogenic view of the universe - we know the universe can 
support life because we're here.

> I honestly don't know any more whether you're honestly asking
> questions because you want to know the answers, or whether you're just
> trolling.

I want to know.

>  > Is it "parochial" because its human?
>
> No.

ah.

then *why* is it parochial?  that's what I don't understand.

>  > >We honestly don't know which of the many diverse Mesozoic and 
> Paleogene
>  > >extinct
>  > >lineages of mammals (allotheres, eutriconodonts, docodonts, etc., 
> etc.)
>  > >were egg-laying mammals but not monotremes (i.e., not part
>  > >of Monotremata).
>  >
>  > Tempting as it would be to therefore ask "then what good is a
>  > cladogram when the relationships are uncertain", I won't.
>
> But I will answer the question anyway.  The good of a cladogram is
> that it illustrates a phylogenetic hypothesis.

 one could say the same about scientific names.  and, like a cladogram, if 
the hypothesis is wrong, that doesn't discredit the naming procedure...we 
just move the name to the group under which we (in a new hypothesis) think 
it belongs to.

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