Re: Birds and pornography and Caenagnathiformes (toothlessness)

["Mickey_Mortimer11" <Mickey_Mortimer11@email.msn.com>]

philidor11@snet.net wrote-

> Classes are certainly more useful because they do not relay on
> retrograde analyses, but on immediate observation of clear differences.
>  They are unquestionable and essential, no doubt about it.
> We know that the distinctions between birds, for instance, and
> some representatives of another large group called dinosaurs
> would disappear as we went back in time.  Therefore, we won't
> look back in time in identifying groups.

Don't you realize "clear differences" are often misleading and often not
present.  What sort of horrible classification would result from "immediate
observation of clear differences"?  Hey look, a whale!  What does it look
most like judging by my immediate observation?  A fish!  There we go....
whales are fishes.  Perfect.  No need to actually spend time and effort
studying its detailed morphology, physiology, etc. to elucidate its
phylogenetic relationships, because calling it a fish is so much easier.
And yes, ignore the extinct taxa.  Also the perfect solution ;-)  Here's
Archaeopteryx.  It's sort of like a bird, but sort of like a dinosaur too.
Luckily it's extinct, so it doesn't matter what it is.  We'll leave it
unclassified and never figure out how it's related.

> Any classifications
> based on the beginnings of distinctions could result only in
> creating problems for ourselves.  So we'll avoid that in setting
> Classes.

Yes, avoid the problems science is meant to solve.  Ignoring problems makes
them go away after all.

> And if some people want to be stuck in their labs all day feeling
> around bony knobs like phrenological pathologists to determine
> which small subsubsubgroup an extinct animal belongs in, okay,
> but I'd rather be out with the traveler on horseback, tromping
> worms.

Then you're obviously not cut out for phylogenetics.  Maybe you also want to
use your imagination to connect stars in certain patterns (it's easier and
doesn't require things like "data" or "analyses"), but you won't find out
how stellar evolution proceeds or how stars utilize nuclear fusion doing
that.  There are people who are content to only look at constellations and
tromp worms, but they aren't scientists.

> You're stuck with arguing about classification if you're looking
> at Clades.
> Your job is much easier if you look at Classes.
> Does it have feathers?  Bird.  (True, in the past non-birds may
> have had feathers.  Some animal not closely related to modern
> birds at all may have had feathers.  So what?  Exceptions are
> made to be ratiocinated.)
> You can now distinguish birds from dinosaurs from reptiles without
> agonizing over it.

And you know what?  We _like_ arguing about classification.  As long as the
arguments lead to more knowledge that will eventually give us the real
phylogeny, they're welcome.
Wow!  By merely utilizing subjectively chosen characters, ignoring fossils,
and ignoring those subjectively chosen characters when we want to, we have a
perfect classification of organisms!  And we can distinguish birds from
dinosaurs without thinking about it,... er I mean "agonizing over it".
Because all we want is a handy classification, not real knowlefge as to how
organisms are related.  Why would we actually want to know something about
the world when we can just give everything labels? ;-)

Mickey Mortimer