Re: Most popular/common dinosaur misconceptions

[Jeff Hecht <jeff@jeffhecht.com>]

At 1:07 PM -0400 8/18/06, dinoboygraphics@aol.com wrote:
>
>Ironically, you have just hit on why it is so vital (from an educational point 
>of view) to insist upon calling birds "dinosaurs" (and non-avian dinosaurs, 
>well.... "non-avian dinosaurs").  Because the separation is NOT very big, and 
>to think otherwise is to let our historical vantage point cloud us from the 
>evolutionary reality.  A robin and a non-avian theropod have far, far more in 
>common in their skeletons than bats do to most other mammal groups.  There is 
>not a single morphological arguement that makes birds more different from 
>other dinosaurs than bats (or even cetaceans) are from other mammals.  The 
>only remaining reasons would have to be that birds are alive and other 
>dinosaurs are dead, or that we are simply "not used to it".  Niether of which 
>is not a valid rationale for phylogenetic systemmatics.
>
>No wonder Americans have a hard time with understanding evolutionary biology, 
>when some try to make mountains out of evolutionary mole hills.

It's worth noting that one of the questions used to assess people's 
understanding of evolution in surveys recently described in Science is a 
true-false:

"The earliest humans lived at the same time as the dinosaurs."  To which 28% 
answered true, 22% said not sure, and  51% said false. If paleonotologists 
change the rules and start calling birds "dinosaurs", expect the confusion 
factor to soar among the public.

And if you want to look at the public messiness of redefinition of scientific 
concepts, go read what's happening with astronomers' efforts to redefine what 
is a planet.
-- 
Jeff Hecht, science & technology writer
jeff@jeffhecht.com  http://www.jhecht.net
Boston Correspondent: New Scientist magazine
Contributing Editor: Laser Focus World
525 Auburn St., Auburndale, MA 02466 USA
v. 617-965-3834; fax 617-332-4760