Re: SCIENCE AND CLASSIFICATION

["Ken Kinman" <kinman@hotmail.com>]

Dear All,
     Virtually everyone (scientists and the public alike) accepts 
Archaeopteryx as a bird and member of Aves.  If they accept it, they will 
probably readily accept the inclusion of other forms with "vaned" feathers 
and which laid ornithoid eggs.  I don't see any big problems on this front.
      The only real problem may be a handful of people who want a crown 
group Aves like Gauthier (is Norell et al. now joining him on that?).  My 
expansion makes more sense than their implosion of Aves.
              ------ Ken Kinman

******************************************
> From: NJPharris@aol.com
>
> In a message dated Tue, 5 Feb 2002  7:26:53 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
> "philidor11" <philidor11@snet.net> writes:
>
> > Expressed that way, no problem at all.
> > We've agreed birds have a permanent, identical definition in the 
> vernacular
> > and scientifically.
>
> No, we haven't.  We've established that the scientific term Aves and the 
> vernacular term "bird" encompass the same set of living entities.  Aves is 
> still *defined* as "the most recent common ancestor of _Archaeopteryx_ and 
> modern birds and all of its descendants".  The lexicosemantics of "bird" 
> probably vary somewhat even among individual speakers.
>
>
> Debate over classification of fossil animals will not,
> > cannot change the definition.
>
> I guess I agree with that (see above).  Such debate may, however, change 
> the set of entities to which the definition applies.
>
>
> > On the close calls, whatever isn't a bird is
> > a dinosaur
>
> As is everything that *is* a bird...
>
> --Nick P.


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