Re: Bambiraptor feinbergi

["Matthew Bonnan" <mbonnan@hotmail.com>]

Caitlin R. Kiernan said:

> I truly fear that names like "Bambiraptor,"
> if their erection becomes commonplace, will serve to undermine some of the
> dignity of taxonomy *and* vertebrate paleontology.

Well, Sonic Hedgehog was the name given to the hox gene that controls limb 
development, and this, as many on this list probably know, was named after 
the famous video game character.  You might even make the case that 
Irritator challengeri (yipes!), or Hallucigenia and Sanctacarias (literally 
Santa Claws) from the Burgess Shale are stretching it a bit.  Where is the 
so-called "dignity" in any of these names?  They are "catchy."  I can 
understand your anxiety about paleo looking "soft" to other "hard" 
scientists because of Bambiraptor and other recent "catchy" dinosaur names, 
but paleo has always been looked on as a secondary science to physics, 
chemistry, biology, etc.  Of course, I would not agree with this assessment, 
but we deal with so many filters in paleo that we cannot be expected to 
conduct experiments in the same sense as scientists who can set up controls 
and repeat specific events.  We have the burden of piecing together a 
one-time only event and must deal with many problems unheard of elsewhere 
(except, of course, related historical sciences like archaeology, 
anthropology, etc.).  In the end, its not so much the name that matters but 
what the specimens yield in terms of the evolutionary story of dinosaurs 
that is important.

Matt Bonnan
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