[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index][Subject Index][Author Index]
Re: Bambiraptor feinbergi
In a message dated 4/8/00 7:05:30 PM EST, KiernanCR@aol.com writes:
<< Because taxonomy, like morphology, ecology, physiology, stratigraphy, and
so
forth, is a tool for organizing and understanding data, and matters of
nomenclature are a critical part of that tool. Which is why we have rules,
the written kind that the ICZN manages, and the unwritten kind, that ought
to
be almost as important. Nomenclature isn't something inconvenient to be
quickly dispensed with, an inconvenient prologue to some part of biology
that
you might personally happen to find more interesting. The naming of a new
dinosaur may be a relatively simple matter, but it should still be handled
as
rigorously and thoughtfully (and respectfully) as the study of its evolution
or habits. >>
Don't see how this follows. If naming dinosaurs is fun, why shouldn't we have
a few humorous names every now and then? I don't think Bambiraptor is all
that bad a name; at least it's short and easily pronounceable. (You'd go nuts
with some of the names we mathematicians have been bandying about for
four-dimensional figures, such as "quit sissid," "srico," "stepdady," and
"icannixady." If you try for the usual Greekish names such "dodecahedron" and
"icosahedron," the corresponding names of 4D figures get >miles< long, e.g.,
"small prismatohexacosihecatonicosachoron" [one of the simpler ones].)