Re: correct this "definition"

[Martin Baeker <martin.baeker@tu-bs.de>]

> >  or would we re-define?  (Of course, if Phylocode were enabled, we 
> > couldn't).
> 
> Yes, we could, under the latest draft:
> 
> "15.11.  An unrestricted emendation (see Art. 15.8) is intended to
> preserve the application of a particular name in terms of the
> conceptualization of the clade to which it refers.

Wow, this code must be written by lawyers (without the context of our
discussion, I could have read this 10 times without understanding
it...) But good to see that this is now possible.

> That'd certainly be an interesting area to go into, but would the full
> history of the name be appropriate for a general talk on dinosaurs?

However you do it, I think it is important to clear up the
misconception that anythign big and extinct is a dinosaur. To do so, I
think it is not sufficient to just say "dinosaurs are defined as
such-and-such" without at least giving an idea *why* they are defined
this way. Otherwise, people will just say "Typically for scientists -
they like to make up definitions that don't agree with common sense."


> I
> suppose you could say the original diagnosis partly holds up and
> partly doesn't, and that's why the definition is based on the original
> composition, not the original diagnosis. But I dunno who'd still be
> awake after that. :)

I agree, that's too technically expressed to be interesting. 

Martin.

                   Priv.-Doz. Dr. Martin BÃker
                   Institut fÃr Werkstoffe
                   Technische UniversitÃt Braunschweig
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                   e-mail <martin.baeker@tu-bs.de>