Re: Fw: Most popular/common dinosaur misconceptions

[don ohmes <d_ohmes@yahoo.com>]

I agree that rigorously defined terms are essential, and that definitions morph 
over time with increased understanding. But why mess with folks over words like 
"planet", "fish", or even "dinosaur"? Everybody knows what a fish is; sometimes 
they bite and sometimes they don't. Planets are what astrologers use to mess 
with people's minds, and sometimes we shoot at them with rockets. They are nice 
if you have a telescope or want to write science fiction, too.

Continue to invent precise, (and hopefully) concise new terms to go with 
rigorous new definitions and new taxonomies, and move on by leaving fuzzy and 
traditional (albeit formerly scientific) terms to fuzzy, traditional usage.

Don

PS-- Concise. Heh. Yeah, dream on...

----- Original Message ----
From: T. Michael Keesey <keesey@gmail.com>
To: dinosaur@usc.edu
Sent: Monday, August 21, 2006 3:52:17 PM
Subject: Re: Fw: Most popular/common dinosaur misconceptions

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