Re: the tonight show

[Ronald Orenstein <ornstn@home.com>]

At 02:08 PM 09/01/01 +0000, Ken Kinman wrote:
>     All things considered, and being directed at the generalized audience 
> of the Tonight Show, I would say the comparison was a useful one 
> (although I must admit that I didn't see that show myself).  And if 
> velociraptors are secondarily flightless, then the comparison is even 
> more appropriate.

I must disagree.  Calling a cassowary a "dino-bird" will imply to a general 
audience not that it is marginally more like a Velociraptor than a sparrow 
is (and I am not sure I buy this either), but that it is some sort of 
halfway-house between birds and (other) dinosaurs.  Of course it is nothing 
of the kind.  It is a perfectly good modern bird, though a 
palaeognath.  You could just as easily say that a koala is more like a 
crossopterygian fish than an elephant - hardly a useful statement even if, 
genetically, it might be (marginally) true.


--
Ronald I. Orenstein                           Phone: (905) 820-7886
International Wildlife Coalition              Fax/Modem: (905) 569-0116
1825 Shady Creek Court
Mississauga, Ontario, Canada L5L 3W2          mailto:ornstn@home.com