Dinosaurs as Reptiles

[Ralph Chapman <ralphchapman@earthlink.net>]

Hey gang, 

I've found this long thread interesting as it has meandered around. I would 
like to get back to a simple approach. To be blunt, I have not really understood
exactly what the problem is. Most of us, I think, now recognize the Amniota as 
the
branching node and Reptilia as further up the chain towards lizards and dinos 
(and
birds). Simple. It's not as if we aren't constantly redefining taxa and 
their names anyway - even before the cladistics boom - so we just need to be 
explicit
about what we are talking about.

The whole matter reminds me of the Damon Runyon story about baseball umpires. I 
can't find my copy so I'll just do my best to paraphrase and hope I don't
do it too much violence. Peter Bretsky also quoted this in a paper about the 
definition
of communities in paleoecology a long while ago.

Anyway, someone saw three umpires drinking in a bar - a young one, a middle aged
one, and an older one. They went up and asked how they called balls and strikes 
behind the plate.

"I calls 'em as they are " said the young one.

The middle-aged one, being more experienced and wise said "I calls 'em 
as I sees 'em"

The oldest umpre, being the wisest, said "There are balls and strikes, but 
there ain't nothin 'till I calls 'em"


This pretty much sums up what we do. There is a strong signal (evolution) there 
we are describing and we have to overlay some structure on it to make sense of 
it,
and we try and use a structure that makes sense to the data. Classification is 
an
important component of that and we have to define taxa, especially above the 
species
level, in a way that makes sense for the rest of what we do and makes it easier 
to see what is happening. Our current definition of reptiles is now beyond what 
it used to be (now Amniota) and would certainly include dinosaurs and, of 
course,
birds. The latter annoys some ornithologists and that may make it worth it alone
(just kidding, I know lots of great ornithologists). So, why is this a problem? 
Hell, I'm not too old to learn.


Of course, these are just the ramblings of a fish,

Ralph Chapman

Ralph E. Chapman
295 Bryce Avenue
Los Alamos, NM 87544
USA
(208) 233-4639


Ralph E. Chapman
295 Bryce Avenue
Los Alamos, NM 87544
USA
(208) 233-4639