Re: the definition of Reptilia

["David Marjanovic" <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

> HP Schenk concluded:
> <[...] any more than they would consider humans to be amphibians
> because we had an ancestor that would have been considered an
> amphibian.>
>
> Yes.

No, at least not since the end-80s. Amphibia has been given both a
crown-group and a stem-based definition, see
http://beta.tolweb.org/tree?group=Terrestrial_Vertebrates&contgroup=Sarcopte
rygii&dynnodeid=11687 (the beta version preview of the new layout of the
Tree of Life pages). Said ancestor was a tetrapod and nothing more specific.

> The issue here is the degree to which science should respond
> to the obvious, when what is obvious cannot be demonstrated factually
> incorrect.  A naming convention is not factual, and if scientific
> knowledge and discussion are not to be made unnnecessarily arcane,
> then the intuitive understanding of the public, which starts
> with observation, should be considered as much as possible.
> [...]
> The first
> consideration should be conceptual, rather than solving the problems
> of classifying specific individual animals whose available remains
> are limited.
> Jefferson's comment that the differences among major groups should
> be visible to the glance of a traveler on horseback and his hesitation
> at including bones in a classification scheme do provide a balancing
> perspective.

It is often impossible, I'm told, to tell apart polychaetes and nematodes
(complete, living individuals) not just from horseback but in the lab
without a microscope. These are not just in different _PHYLA_, the former is
in Lophotrochozoa, close to e. g. earthworms and molluscs, the latter is in
Ecdysozoa, close to arthropods. So much for obviousness, observation,
intuitive understanding, and limited remains... unless you want to
reintroduce Vermes.

> And, contra HP Kinman, the characteristics (I'm using the more
> general word here) that most people would use to distinguish
> birds from lizards are not entirely osteological.

>From lizards, yes. But from "reptiles" or another group whose existence was
recognised/invented/... only by scientists?

> I agree wih him (HP Kinman) that assuring Archie is a bird by
> including him/her in the definition appears to be creating problems.

So do I.