Re: the definition of Reptilia

[philidor11@snet.net]

In response to my comment:
<The first consideration [in devising a classification system] 
should be conceptual, rather than solving the problems of classifying 
specific individual animals whose available remains are limited.>
you observed:
<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.>
 
Okay, then the sentence should end, '... whose available remains 
are limited or whose differences must be observed with a microscope.'
I was considering the role of fossils which share character[istic]s 
of different groups, but point taken.

I response to my
<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.>
you said
<From lizards, yes. But from "reptiles" or another group whose 
existence was
recognised/invented/... only by scientists?>

cf the comment about 'arcane' knowledge in a prior paragraph.
When knowledge, or worse, language are available only to an elite 
there are social problems.
There isn't a scientist on this List who doesn't want to be understood 
by the person whose comments s/he is answering and, preferably, 
by everyone else.
I don't think there is any intent to create hierophants; my concern 
is that in an attempt to gain influence on the way the public 
thinks, there may be an accidental creation of a polarization 
between those who Know and those Ignorant because they use observation/quotidi
an logic.
I do think avoiding that is worth an effort.




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