Re: Triassic mammal-like reptiles?

[Tim Williams <twilliams_alpha@hotmail.com>]

Rodlox R wrote:

> > "Mammal relative" is just as comprehensible (if
> > not moreso), more concise, and, to top it off, correct.
>
>  but the problem is - everything on Earth is related, if not very closely.
>
> I may as well say I'm an "Australian relative".   if you go back far enough 
> (tens of thousands of years), sure, I'm related to an Australian....but 
> there's no Australians in my recent (several centuries) family tree.

Yes, but when you say "I'm going to visit my relatives", what you mean is 
you are going to visit your *close* relatives (like your first or second 
cousins) - not a complete stranger who lives on another continent.  As it 
happens, my family tree is crammed with Australians; but if you head 'Down 
Under' and darken their doorstep, my relatives are going to be very 
skeptical about your insistence that you are indeed a "relative".  
Similarly, Bakker is using "mammal relative" in the conventional sense - not 
in the literal "yes but we're ALL related in some way" sense.

You are correct in the literal sense: we are all related.  If you go back 
far enough we could each put stinkbugs and cauliflower on our family trees - 
which at that level would be the same family tree for all of us.  (I'm 
taking a leap of faith here and assuming all listmembers are indeed humans.) 
 But I don't really see stinkbugs or cauliflowers as my "relatives".  For 
one thing, they never send me greeting cards at Christmas.

Phil Bigelow wrote:

> Referring to Dimetrodon as a "mammal relative" is accurate and it is
> correct.  But even dinosaurs are "mammal relatives", so perhaps the term
> should be amended to "mammals' closest relatives".

Again, I think "mammal relative" has the connotation that they are *close* 
to mammals.  After all, the term is vernacular, and in this context it means 
much the same as "near-mammal".

Cheers

Tim