Re: Strange thoughts on PN - was Re: BAD vs. BADD

[David Marjanovic <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

> No matter how strong the arguments for birds being dinosaurs are (and
> they are obviously overwhelming, there is no need to argue on that),
> whenever you say or hear "dinosaur", I'm quite sure your first thought
> is *not* of a bird.

Indeed not. But upon hearing "mammal", my first thought is not of a whale or 
bat either...

> It cuts both ways because defining birds as archae+passer is also
> completely arbitrary.

This is true. But under the Linnaean system, drawing such lines is _doubly_ 
arbitrary. If you draw the line at Archie in the Linnaean system, you 
(possibly) force *Microraptor* to be a reptile, classified with the turtles 
but not with Archie. In phylogenetic nomenclature this latter nonsense drops 
away: you name a clade slightly bigger than Aves (Eumaniraptora, say), one 
slightly smaller (such as Avebrevicauda), and so on... Even without 
recognising *Microraptor* as a bird, it allows you to group it with the 
birds to the exclusion of the turtles or even (possibly) the 
oviraptorosaurs.

> Probably, but if you think of JP, what you see there is rather dinos
> as "superbirds" (bigger, smarter, faster) than as something *between*
> less derived archosaurs and birds.

Nah. They are supermonsters there, not superbirds. No feathers anywhere? 
Paleontologists claiming that *T. rex* is unable to see you unless you move? 
Frog DNA used to fill in gaps? Come on.

> But considering the immense bother people take to think about naming
> clades, arguing how to do it, thinking about a new nomenclature -
> couldn't we completely get rid of it and only name species in the
> future in this simple way?

There is more than one such way to name almost any clade.

> So, a dipnoan is closer in brain organisation, habitat, color and
> respiration to a bird?

In respiration it is. In brain organisation it may well be. In habitat... 
well, maybe in summer. :-} Color? Depends on which bird and which 
lungfish -- there's almost no phylogenetic signal in that character.