RE: What is a Dinosaur?

["Ken Kinman" <kinman@hotmail.com>]

Tracy,
     I am not in the least surprised that they couldn't come up with a 
unifying trait for Dinosauria (even one that is subject to some degree of 
reversal).  And the strict cladists can boo and hiss at me all they want, 
but I was truly shocked that I couldn't get a really serious discussion on 
any of Sereno's purported synapomorphies of Dinosauria (little but 
semantics, nitpicking and irrelevant diversions).  If such serious 
discussion requires a fully formed alternative cladistic paradigm, then you 
are going to be in for a long wait, and I can now see why Dinogeorge seems 
reluctant to discuss his own ideas on dinosaur origins in this forum until 
he has an overwhelmingly strong case to present.  I don't think this is 
scientifically healthy, but this is apparently the way it is.
     It also has become increasingly apparent to me that basal dinosaur 
relationships cannot be fully understood without a critical reappraisal of 
Crurotarsi, and Ornithosuchidae in particular.  I am particularly interested 
in some of Jack Conrad's comments on this subject which I found today.  
Cladistic inertia tends to get in the way of evaluating such alternative 
viewpoints, not an inertia borne of cladistic analysis (which I personally 
find very useful), but of cladistic taxonomy per se.
    So tomorrow I will be taking a hard look at what Jack Conrad posted on 
the subject of basal crurotarsi and basal dinosaurs.  Sometimes scientific 
understanding can parallel evolutionary punctuated equilibria (and strict 
cladism and strict eclectisim can both stifle punctuated advances in such 
understanding).    Here is a link to some of those ideas I will be 
evaluating:

http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hall/1636/sauropsida/archosauriformes.html

********************************************
> From: "Tracy L. Ford" <dino.hunter@home.com>
> Reply-To: dino.hunter@home.com
> To: "Dinonet" <dinosaur@usc.edu>
> Subject: RE: What is a Dinosaur?
> Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2001 16:42:06 -0700
>
>
> This topic reminds me of the first and only Dinosaur Systematic symposium
> that the Royal Tyrrell Museum held. There was a round table discussion and
> one of the questions was What is a dinosaur? All the big dinosaur people
> were there, and none could come up with a unifying trait that all dinosaurs
> had.
>
> Tracy L. Ford
> P. O. Box 1171
> Poway Ca  92074


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