Actually, it does follow from the observable natural characteristics. How do you think formal classification/phylogenetics works? And why are you downplaying what is among the most well-tested hypotheses in science? Do you think that oxygen atoms having 8 protons is similarly hypothetical?
No it won’t. I don’t think you understand the purpose of calling mammals “fish” or how the discussion works. You even seem to be minimizing the evidence for common descent in the process. What’s going on with you?
Exactly. So what’s wrong with that?
No, they are meant to surprise and to spur thinking, which is different. You’re an odd fish indeed.
No, it does not; otherwise, Aristotle, Linnaeus, and all pre-cladistic biologists (including Darwin) would have classified bears as fish; and none of them, as far as I know, did.
I understand it perfectly well. We’ve had this discussion before. You gave your reasons, and I understood them. But they are lousy reasons – unless we are talking about conversations held entirely among people who work in cladistics. For normal human communication, calling mammals fish is idiocy. But then, the phrase “idiot savant” came into existence for a reason.
Nothing’s wrong with it – for the purpose indicated.
The element of surprise can’t be separated from an element of confusion in this case. Fish and bears, the same thing? The mind struggles to process the claim. But there is no point in quarrelling over the optimum word choice here, especially since I agree with “to surprise and to spur thinking.”
No doubt I am. But I accept that label only in the traditional sense of the phrase “odd fish,” which has nothing to do with calling mammals fish, something only someone with his nose in technical literature for far too long would do in lay contexts.
You completely misunderstood the point of the parallel. I am not saying that (using your example) bears are ‘fish’ in the same (or similar) way for why a tomato is a fruit. What I was saying is that we don’t always have to use words in a strict objective manner (e.g. tomato as a fruit in the botanical sense). We shouldn’t say that a tomato is a fruit when speaking to everyday people in colloquial language; just like when you said that we shouldn’t insist that humans are ‘fish’ when speaking to everyday people in colloquial language. Or do you think that we should say that tomatoes are fruit in everyday life? Unless your answer is “yes”, then you agree with the point of my analogy.
Actually, we do. Clades are inferred from identifying synapomorphies (shared derived traits). If you want to know exactly how that is done, well… you have to take a lot of courses with a lot of statistics.
They also didn’t think that birds are dinosaurs, yet here we are. The fact that scientists in the past were wrong about such classifications isn’t really a point. I am not saying that “bears as fish” is intuitive. What I am saying is that such classification is indeed accurate, based on a large sum of observable evidence.
You seem to be very confused about this. The statement “bears are fish” is not saying that bears and fish are the same thing. Like, you would agree that sharks, rays, clown fish and sea horses are all fish, right? Does that mean they are “the same thing”? No it doesn’t. My mind doesn’t seem to struggle to process this.
Okay, my bad for trying to infer your position. So, you have an issue with cladistics then. Remember, cladistics holds that only monophyletic clades are natural (or real) taxonomic groups of life. A group of “powered fliers” would be polyphyletic, thus not a natural group. Similarly, with heterotrophs (a hotchpotch of paraphyletic and polyphyletic groups). Such groups would be a case of phenetics based on typological thinking.
Do you agree with this or not? Here, it appears that you don’t agree.
No, I’m not. The confusion arises only when hyperspecialized scientists try to meddle with everyday language.
I’m aware of that. But it is saying that bears are a type of fish or a subdivision of fish. And in normal English usage, that is simply incorrect.
These are “fish” in everyday language, but they are from a different Class than the bony fish; they belong to Chondrichthyes rather than Osteichthyes. There are also the Agnatha, again “fish” in everyday parlance, but a distinct class of Vertebrates. Thus, of the seven Classes of Vertebrates – Agnatha, Chondrichthyes, Osteichthyes, Amphibia, Reptilia, Aves, and Mammalia – none of them has “fish” in its scientific name. Yet a lay person, seeing almost any example of any of the first three Classes, would unhesitatingly call it a “fish.”
I should add that this is the case not only for lay people, but also for scientists, when they are dealing with matters of everyday life. Have you ever heard a biologist in a restaurant complaining that there is no variety on the menu because all the choices – haddock, chicken, pork, roast beef, lamb, etc. – are “fish”? In fact, even biology teachers, when they are not thinking specifically about evolutionary origins, use the word “fish” in a conventional way, as is clear from innumerable reference books, and websites like this one:
Note that this lay usage has nothing to do with anti-evolutionary sentiment. Many lay people have no problem saying that other vertebrates “descended from fish”; they simply deny that the other vertebrates are fish. This is perfectly sensible. Lay people with even a slight bit of education have no problem saying that Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese “descended from Latin”; but all would quite properly deny that those languages are Latin.
I agree with this, overall.
It depends on who one is talking to. A good number of lay people are aware that a tomato is botanically a fruit, and that it is only commercial convention which has caused us to label it as a vegetable. I certainly would not “correct” someone who called a tomato a vegetable in normal conversation in a restaurant or store, but it doesn’t take any great grasp of biology to understand why a tomato is a fruit. You don’t need “a lot of courses with a lot of statistics” to see why.
I hope you can see that systematics is a subject you know little about but in which I am a professional. And perhaps you can then see your way towards less confidence in your rejections of what I say about it. Further, your argument here seems to require that science does not advance, and that Aristotle would have made all observations it was possible to make. He invented systematics, but he was not the seal of the systematists. Observable natural characteristics sufficient to include tetrapods within “fish” were known long before the advent of molecular systematics, and DNA sequences are observable natural characteristics anyway. So what do you think you’re claiming? Now why didn’t anyone pre-cladistics classify bears as fish? Well, simply because the goal of systematics, pre-cladistics, wasn’t to identify clades but to produce classifications of convenience, often based on superficial resemblance. Linnaeus was explicit that his classification was an artificial system.
Why end on an insult? And what makes you think that only professionals are capable of understanding cladistic ideas? You insult the public in addition to insulting me.
Then why are you calling it idiocy?
Your mind, perhaps. But you betray an inflexibility perhaps attributable to your advanced age. Many others are more resilient.
Again, you assume, wrongly, that non-professionals are incapable of understanding this sort of thing and insult me in the process.
Your bizarre objections to the use of the term in this way appear to have everything to do with your anti-evolutionary sentiment. Set theory is very important in understanding evolution.
Remember your false claim that “ribozymes are enzymes, and enzymes are proteins”?
Oh, those naughty scientists. Meddling with language. They think gravity is a “theory”, which is ridiculous since we all know that theory means speculation and gravity is obviously not speculation. Spiders are not “bugs”? Why? Just look at them. They are obviously bugs. Oh, you say “bug” has a specific definition to entomologists…pfff…so what? Oh, and now suddenly birds are dinosaurs, but pterosaurs and plesiosaurs are not? Tomatoes are fruit, but strawberries are not berries? Why do they always have to make things so complicated and confusing??
Okay, sarcasm aside. I think this is a really strange objection. Words don’t have meanings, they have usages. And as I have clarified again and again, I don’t have a problem with using terms colloquially in most everyday contexts. All I am saying that there is this other usage, one that is supported by good reasoning and evidence (again, I am not saying that this means we have to switch to this usage at all times). But you come up with the strange objection of ‘you shall not meddle with everyday language’ which I don’t think is valid. I am not even sure if it means anything. We are constantly meddling with language.
Sigh…you just said this: "Fish and bears, the same thing? The mind struggles to process the claim.” Either you misspoke (or misswrote) or you really weren’t aware of this.
Yes, I know that they are different types of fish. That was the point of me bringing up sharks, rays, clown fish, and seahorses. To show you that ‘fishes’ aren’t “the same thing” .
However, you are incorrect with your last statement. Two of the seven names you gave actually DO have ‘fish’ in their scientific names. ‘Chondrichthyes’ is from ancient Greek (khóndros) ‘cartilage’ and (ikhthús) ‘fish’. ‘Osteichthyes’ is from ancient Greek for (ostéon) ‘bone’ and - again - (ikhthús) ‘fish’. Furthermore, Osteichthyes is divided into two subcategories; Actinopterygii (Ray-finned fishes) and Sarcopterygii (lobe-finned fishes). The latter of these two includes the tetrapods, i.e. Amphibia, Reptilia, Aves, and Mammalia. Ergo, these are all ‘lobe-finned fish’ which in turn also means they are ‘bony fish’. You’ve unwittingly proven the point for me.
Just to throw it out there, Aves (birds) is a subset of Reptilia. But let’s stick to ‘fish’ for now.
And there are laymen who, seeing these examples below of the latter classes, would unhesitatingly call these “fish”.
The group on the right even has the scientific name ‘Ichtyosaurs’, greek for “fish lizards”.
In any case, I am not disputing that people would call some things ‘fish’ more readily than other things. That’s NOT relevant to the point I am making whatsoever.
No, I also have never seen any botanist complain about not getting any tomatoes in their fruit salad. So what? I don’t indent to ‘police’ people in such situations to use either the botanical usage of ‘fruit’ or the cladistic usage of ‘fish’. This isn’t an argument against anything that I have actually said, and I clarified numerous times that I am not disputing things like what you are saying here.
That is a very nice caveat that you have put there in italics . It’s almost like you are trying to miss my point on purpose, because THAT right there pretty much sums up the point that I am making.
They are actually called Romance languages , or Latin languages . Which is a subbranch of the Italic languages. This isn’t a very good example for the purpose you are trying to use it for. It actually better aligns with my point.
Okay, so then I hope you now understand that me saying the following: “Tetrapods (i.e. Amphibia, Reptilia, Aves, and Mammalia) are all ‘fish’”
Does NOT mean I am trying to “change every day language”, thereby making your points of restaurants and such all irrelevant.
Another irrelevant point, one I already addressed before. I am not saying that the statement (for example) “bears are fish” is intuitive. I am saying that such classification is nonetheless accurate, and based on good reasoning and a large sum of observable evidence.
In the words you quote, I was discussing with Harshman the probable reaction of many readers to a book (we were discussing Shubin’s as an example) that said that bears (or humans etc.) were fish. A typical lay reader might well say something like my words there. But I am now speaking to you about what I would say, not to Harshman about what a hypothetical lay reader of Shubin might say. And speaking to you now, I have not said that you are claiming that fish and bears are the same thing. But you are claiming that bears are a type of fish, or a branch of the fish group, or the like. And that’s the usage I find non-constructive. It would be less confusing to the layman if you said that bears belonged to the clade Osteichthyes, since the latter term is one the layman never uses and therefore will not confuse with “fish.”
It’s only meddling in an improper way when everyday usage and technical usage are confounded. There’s nothing wrong with scientists using words in special ways when talking among themselves. To say that bears are fish mangles everyday language and provides no technical clarity either. To say that bears are Osteichthyes (meaning the clade, not the class) is to self-consciously use technical language, and therefore provides clarity for those interested in the technical questions. I have no problem with that.
Yes, I know. I have taught Greek, have translated Plato and the New Testament, and am well aware of the word roots. But while those compound terms come from a root word meaning “fish,” they do not cover the same ground as “fish” in everyday usage. Each of them covers only part of what the layman calls “fish.” Indeed, each of them is more precise than “fish,” which is why biologists frequently use them instead of speaking of “fish.” I’m merely suggesting that the wisdom which employs such technical terms should be extended, such that biologists, when talking to everyday people, should never say “bears are fish” but should say “bears belong to the clade Osteichthyes.” That way, the layman can say, “OK, this biologist is talking technical here, and is doubtless technically right, if I could be bothered following up on the statement,” instead of, “This biologist is talking rot, because bears aren’t fish.” In short, if a layman is confused when some biologist tells him that bears are “really” fish, it’s the biologist’s fault for poor communication, not the layman’s fault.
Yes, it is, in current classification. But it’s still wrong, in everyday English, to say that birds are reptiles, and biologists shouldn’t confuse people by using the latter locution.
Again, your little lecture is unnecessary. I am aware of the terminology, from doing a doctorate in a field that requires knowledge of several languages and linguistics, and from teaching related subjects for many years. What you say is correct, but does not affect my point. It is wrong in everyday English to say that Spanish is Latin. For the same reason that it’s wrong to say in everyday English that bears are fish. If you want to say that Spanish belongs to the “clade” [to borrow a biological term] of “Latin languages,” that is fine with me, but it’s still wrong to say that Spanish is Latin.
But you shouldn’t ever say that. In technical scientific discussion, you should say that they are all Osteichthyes (referring to the clade). There is no need for anyone ever to write or utter the sentence you have just given. In lay English, it’s just plain wrong, and in technical scientific language, “fish” is not a useful term, for reasons you have pointed out.
The classification “bears are Osteichthyes” would be accurate. The classification “bears are fish” rests on an equivocation in the meaning of “fish.” Scientific language should strive to avoid ambiguous terms.
This from one of the guys here who chastises me for talking about qualifications rather than simply addressing the argument on the table! But let that pass.
I was addressing your claim that the statement “bears are fish” follows from a comparison of observed characteristics. But it doesn’t follow simply from those, because if it did, then people like Aristotle, Linnaeus, and Darwin (all of whom I strongly suspect had observed more species, and observed them more carefully, than you have, despite your modern qualifications) would have said somewhere that bears are fish. But they never said that, or anything parallel to it (humans are fish, birds are fish, etc.). If it “follows” from the observed characteristics of fish and bears, it only does so by the introduction of a theoretical apparatus (including a historical hypothesis about the connection of all species) that goes beyond direct observation. If that’s what you meant, then your statement could be correct. But in the more everyday sense of “follows,” your statement is at best dubious. But as we are now arguing about the meaning of the word “follows,” rather than any point of biological substance, I think we don’t need to pursue this further.
This isn’t about formal qualifications; it’s about knowledge or lack thereof. You pontificate on subjects you know little about to people who actually know that stuff. And then I went on to explain why your claim was silly. But you snipped away and ignored that part.
I should also note that you can’t say “let that pass” unless you actually let it pass, which you didn’t.
Doubling down, eh? When does that ever work out for you? And here you are appealing to qualifications; do you see the irony in that? I agree that all those people did more observing than I have, in terms of numbers of species and of easily observed morphology. Then again, I’ve probably observed more characters than any of them, by an order of magnitude or more. But that’s not relevant, because I don’t have to rely on just my personal observations. I have several hundred years of observations by hundreds of scientists to rely on, much more than even Darwin had available to him. And yes, it does follow from those observations. Did you even read my entire post? The only addition required is the insight that only clades deserve names. Aristotle and Linnaeus of course never knew the concept. Darwin came close, and in fact acted upon it in his systematic work (on barnacles, not bears), and hinted at the notion a few times elsewhere. For example, from the Origin: "the characters which naturalists consider as showing true affinity between any two or more species, are those which have been inherited from a common parent, and, in so far, all true classification is genealogical.” This follows, in a very real sense, from examination of observed characters, though perhaps a more subtle examination than you are thinking of. Common descent is of course not an assumed theoretical framework or axiom but a conclusion from analysis of those characters.
Yes, there is indeed no need to pursue this further. You could simply stop digging.
Yes, I’m aware of that passage. But lots of evolutionary biologists talked about characters inherited from a common parent before they talked about “clades.” I’m not sure what your point is. Are you saying that evolutionary biologists didn’t have a clue about the true historical relationships between species until they started using cladistic terminology?
In any case, I’m not here to wage war against cladistics. My point was a much simpler one. Even using cladistic diagrams and terminology, the group ancestral to all the mammals is not called “fish”; it’s called “Osteichthyes”. So why not say that bears are Osteichthyes, instead of bears are fish, and then the professional cladists will be happy, and the lay people will be happy. It’s a win-win strategy.
Unless, of course, the purpose of saying that “bears are fish” (and even more: “people are fish”) is not an informative purpose, but a culture-war purpose, e.g., to get under the skin of people who don’t accept common descent. Then I could understand why certain professional biologists would go around telling the public that bears are fish, and people, too. It’s doubtless fun telling people who don’t believe in evolution, and in some cases are offended by evolution, that they’re “really” just a sort of fish. It riles them, which I’m sure is often the desired effect.
That’s putting it a bit strongly. Better to say the idea of true historical relationships was a bit fuzzy, and a great deal of nonsense was written about it. Though it isn’t the terminology that’s important, it’s the idea.
That’s the technical term. There are non-technical terms too. “Fish”, for example. Various terms come in handy at different times. And different meanings of the same terms can also come in handy at different times. Not seeing your problem, unless of course you think that any one word must have a single, invariant meaning regardless of context.
I can’t speak for everyone, but I can’t think of any example of that happening. That seems a paranoid musing, and borrowing someone else’s paranoia at that.
Oh, I see now. Sorry. I take that statement back. I apologize for my misunderstanding.
I don’t agree with this sentiment that scientists, or me (or anyone else for that matter) are somehow barred from using every day terms, but in a different way than it is commonly used, in order to communicate something to the public that is - while counterintuitive to the laymen - supported by good reasoning and nonetheless. In other words, I don’t think it is “improper” to educate people on something they may find confusing at first because of what has been ingrained from everyday life experience.
I disagree (explained in the following parts).
But it is very likely that a laymen would ask what “Osteichthyes” means? Even if they don’t ask that, the scientists will likely further explain this by mentioning the common name, which is “bony fish”. That’s not merely the literal translation from ancient Greek. Not only does the technical term have “fish” in its name. “Bony fish” is the common name for the group “Osteichthyes”, just like how “bird” is the common name for “aves”.
What you are describing there (to me, not to you perhaps) is a layman who doesn’t understand the jargon such that they don’t see any reason to be opposed to what is being said, and the jargon also compels them to believe that the biologist undoubtedly knows what they talking about. I wouldn’t call that education. I would describe that as wrapping up a pill in a sausage such that people aren’t aware of what they are swallowing. To me, proper education pretty much always involves a period of difficulty and confusion; when they are at the bottom of the learning curve and preconceptions are being challenged. This compels them…not to blindly believe the jargon…but to THINK about it.
Secondly, would you also say that scientists should never say “birds are dinosaurs”. They should only say “aves belongs within dinosauria” in the hope of avoiding the response “This biologist is talking rot, because birds aren’t dinosaurs. Dinosaurs are big extinct reptiles, birds are not.”?
It’s not, since I was using your analogy to illustrate the very point that I have been making, and you actually acknowledged that when you said: “I am aware of the terminology, from doing a doctorate in a field that requires knowledge of several languages and linguistics, and from teaching related subjects for many years. What you say is correct…”
And this doesn’t affect my point. It’s wrong in everyday language to say that “birds are dinosaurs”, that “tomatoes are fruit”, that “spanish is an Romance/Latin language”, and that “bears are fish”. But I am still correct when I say any of those things.
Although, after thinking more about the concept of “wrong in every day language”, I wouldn’t actually say that it is “wrong” to say these things in “every day language”. Unless by “wrong in everyday language” you mean “not common in every day language”. Like, you acknowledged yourself that such statements (e.g. language and fruit) are correct. It’s just that they aren’t commonly stated as such. Then again, if you think that “not common” means “wrong” then sure. It is “wrong” in that sense, but that doesn’t affect my point.
No, I will say what I can argue is defensible based on good reasoning and evidence. Whether or not you think it would be confusing to laymen has no relevancy on what I should or should not say.
An equivocation means using terms ambiguously. It is NOT equivocation to use a word in a different sense (even a very esoteric sense). It would only be equivocation if I were to switch back and forth between different senses of a word in such a way that would not be obvious. However, I have been very clear and consistent about the terms I use, so no equivocation on my part.
Also, from my perspective, you basically just said that the classification “bears are bony fish” would be accurate. Which is very funny to me since you have just said that I shouldn’t say “bears are fish”.
{some statements aimed at @John_Harshman I would like to address too}
This is something I already addressed before. Lot’s of very smart people (your examples of Aristotle, Linnaeus, and Darwin) did make very accurate guesses that still hold up today, but they were also just simply wrong about lot’s of other things because they didn’t know about things that we know today. This isn’t a point against our contention that what we are saying follows on good reasoning and observed evidence. There are lot’s of things in science that are very well-supported by observations, but they were not known about before.
I think you are once again mistakenly thinking that, when John or I are saying that this “follows from observation”, we mean that such things are “easily recognized” or “intuitive” by anyone, especially if they were a really smart historical figure. That’s not what I mean, nor do I think that is what John means.
OMG, is this what your issue has been all along? You think the only reason you could understand for why I (or anyone else) would do this is not to inform people, but to engage in some kind of “culture-war”?? Are you serious?! @John_Harshman has once again put this in better terms than I could; this is just borrowing someone else’s absurd paranoia.
At this point you aren’t even arguing about what is “correct” or “wrong” to say, at least not in terms of the accuracy of the statement. You are just stating your preference of what words I should and should not use, in order to not step on people’s toes, to avoid offense, and to make sure both the professionals and laymen are happy. What you are arguing for is POLITICAL CORRECTNESS.
Yet Eddie’s post doesn’t indicate that he’s talking about a hypothetical lay reader, and definitely doesn’t indicate that he wouldn’t say the same.
Here’s his full paragraph:
If Eddie had said something stupid and was now trying to pretend he had actually been channelling some-one else, he might well write exactly what he wrote here.
