Re: birds,dogs,stupids....

[Daniel Bensen <dbensen@gotnet.net>]

>>however as you know, nobody here is proposing to call birds dinos, in
everyday life.....<<
On the contrary, I think we are.  Gould argued that we should not _call_
birds dinosaurs, he said nothing about the fact that birds evolved from
dinosaurs (in fact, he supports that theory).  The reasons for not
calling birds dinosaurs is because such a statement is confusing (in the
same way calling an elephant a vertebrate in everyday language is
confusing---hey, look, a herd of vertebrates!) and a vast
oversimplification.  Gould has always been against the dumbing down of
science, and I think that simply saying birds are dinosaurs and going no
further is a bit dumbed-down.
Hey, does somebody know Gould's email adress so he can write us and
defend himself?  We could get our names in one of his books if we're
lucky. :)

Dan