Re: Most popular/common dinosaur misconceptions

[Tim Williams <twilliams_alpha@hotmail.com>]

Jura <pristichampsus@yahoo.com> wrote:

> In both cases, I feel it is a false comparison. Calling a bird a dinosaur 
> is a completely different
> thing from calling a bat a mammal. It is more akin to calling a mammal a 
> therapsid, or a snake a lizard.

Yep, guilty as charged.  Although I would amend your second example to read 
"a snake a squamate".  The term 'lizard' is vernacular, and 'lacertilian' is 
essentially abandoned.  See below.

> This is confusing and disconcerting because it assumes no real change 
> occured between the
> groups and invites the use of superfluous (and frankly unwelcome) 
> qualifying terms to indicate a separation that was already assumed before 
> the lumping occured.

I would opine that if it is "confusing and disconcerting" than the onus is 
one you to get acquainted with the science behind phylogenetic taxonomy.  On 
the whole, I think biologists and paleontologists have done a pretty decent 
job explaining the rationale behind this system of taxonomy - whereby 
organisms are united by common descent, not by some perceived (and highly 
subjective) quantum of 'difference'.

> Theoretically the term non-mammalian therapsid, or non-ophidian 
> lacertillian

The former I have encountered, but not the latter.  The term Lacertilia 
tends not to be used so much these days, since it harks back to an outdated 
version of squamate classification which divided them three ways: Lacertilia 
(lizards), Serpentes (snakes), Amphisbaenia (amphisbaenians).  Nowadays the 
Squamata is divided basally into Iguania and Scleroglossa, the latter of 
which includes most 'lizards' as well as snakes, mosasaurs and 
amphisbaenians.

> might also crop up now and again, but I've yet to see it (admittedly the 
> lacertillian one doesn't show up mostly due to the weirdness of 
> lacertillian phylogeny).

Again, what's with all the judgements?  Why is squamate phylogeny so 
'weird'?

> This particular thorny part of taxonomy seems to be limited to dinosaur 
> paleontology

You can't possibly be serious.  Have you seen invertebrate taxonomy lately?  
There are similar examples to the birds-are-dinosaurs issue there, as 
exemplified by the 'phyla' Pogonophora and Vestimentifera now being regarded 
as specialized annelids; body lice (Phthiraptera) evolved from within the 
Psocoptera; and so on.  Closer to home, whales are now regarded as derived 
artiodactyls.  Cladistic classification is now standard, not some aberration 
limited to dinosaurs.

> The lack of this kind of insistence of cladistic classification in other 
> realms of taxonomy (even in entomology; where all this started)

If it all started in entomology, why do you claim that cladistic 
classification is "limited to dinosaur paleontology"?  You seem to be 
arguing against yourself here.

> A) Make birds sound like these even more amazing creatures (historically, 
> birds never seemed to have needed help in this area).
>
> or
>
> B) Dispel the misconception that dinosaurs were failures by showing that in 
> some small way, they
> didn't go extinct.
>
> My vote is on choice B, which fits in well with the initial point of this 
> thread.

No, there's no agenda.  It's just evolution.

Cheers

Tim