Re: Fw: Most popular/common dinosaur misconceptions

[don ohmes <d_ohmes@yahoo.com>]

A couple last comments.

Don

----- Original Message ----
From: T. Michael Keesey <keesey@gmail.com>
To: dinosaur@usc.edu
Sent: Monday, August 21, 2006 7:05:29 PM
Subject: Re: Fw: Most popular/common dinosaur misconceptions

On 8/21/06, don ohmes <d_ohmes@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> 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.

>For the last time, nobody is messing with the word "fish". It's purely
an English vernacular term ,and nobody has even attempted to convert
its Latin counterpart, "Pisces", into a clade. 

Heh. And if someone _does_ erect the clade "Pisces", they better keep their 
mitts off "fish". Just kidding. I think.

>(_Craniata_ and/or
_Vertebrata_ suffice well enough already.) "Dinosaur", OTOH, is a
vernacular form of a formal taxon, _Dinosauria_. And that taxon hasn't
been messed with so much as defined at last.

In my opinion, "dinosaur" is a goner as a scientific term, as is "planet". I am 
sure however, that you can keep _Dinosauria_, as well as the terms you list 
below, especially now that it is clearly defined. The use of the formal term 
will signal that formal definitions are in force. And all the cool kids will 
know the very latest take on the relationships of birds and dinosaurs. 

>And "dinosaur" isn't a term that was borrowed by science from the lay
public, either. It was coined as a biological taxon, and the term
entered public usage from science, not the other way around. Should we
bend over backwards to appease a public who considers pterosaurs,
plesiosaurs, mastodons, crocodiles, and even trilobites more
"dinosaurian" than birds? What is there to benefit from this? How is
such a grouping scientifically useful at all?

It is (IMO) _not_ scientifically useful, in no small part because it was 
undefined yet popular for a long time. That was the point of my tongue-in-cheek 
interpretation of the responses to the poll question "Have humans ever 
co-existed with dinosaurs?".Obviously the correct answer is yes, but the people 
that wrote the poll interpreted the correct answer as a sign of ignorance 
because they were sure the general public were too ignorant to know that birds 
are dinosaurs... and the misunderstandings on all sides can (and did) multiply 
like a 17th century bedroom farce. That is what happens when terms get lost in 
popular usage and scientific controversy. "Dinosaur" is, however, culturally 
useful.

>> 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.

>But it's not "formerly scientific"; it's been scientific all along
(although not rigorously defined until relatively recently). 

And there you have it, IMO. Undefined for long enough to be fossilized deep in 
the "cultural facies". Anyhow, keep up the good work. More power to you, and I 
hope you win.

Don

>That the
public at large has misconceptions about the term should not affect
the scientific nomenclature. Otherwise, we might as well classify
spiders as insects and limit _Animalia_ to tetrapods.
--
T. Michael Keesey
The Dinosauricon: http://dino.lm.com
Parry & Carney: http://parryandcarney.com