Re: Fw: Most popular/common dinosaur misconceptions

["T. Michael Keesey" <keesey@gmail.com>]

On 8/21/06, Nick Pharris <npharris@umich.edu> wrote:
> And remember that to a depressingly large section of the public,
> mammoths and saber-toothed cats are dinosaurs, too--and those assuredly
> did live alongside early humans.

It's a very similar sort of thing to what the IAU is going through
now. I see a lot of articles about how they are "redefining" what a
"planet" is. But for that to be true, there would have had to have
actually been some preexisting definition.

It's not that scientists are redefining terms like "planet" and
"dinosaur"; it's that they were never rigorously defined in the first
place. Rigorous definitions are going to include and/or exclude some
traditional content. But it's okay, because that traditional content
never delimited a scientifically useful group to begin with. The
traditional usages are just accidents of history, and it's high time
to move on.
--
T. Michael Keesey
The Dinosauricon: http://dino.lm.com
Parry & Carney: http://parryandcarney.com