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This article is incorrect, a pterosaur may not be a dinosauria but it definitely is a dinosaur. Dinosaur has become a generic term. You can even refer to human

This article is incorrect, a pterosaur may not be a dinosauria but it definitely is a dinosaur. Dinosaur has become a generic term. You can even refer to humans who have old-school ideas as dinosaurs.

pvg 8y ago
Metaphorical use doesn't count as turning something into a generic term. You can call obstinate humans buttheads, and yet, etc. This is more in the 'a gorilla is not a monkey' or 'a dolphin is not a fish' category. Getting this sort of thing wrong is going to get you torn apart by gangs of roaming five-year-olds on your next natural history museum visit.
- perl4ever 8y ago
  Even though mammals are a subset of the descendants of things that are unquestionably fish, we don't call mammals fish, and we do call things fish that are of separate ancestry, so I feel there is kind of an arbitrary double standard here if we get pedantic about dinosaurs. There's no question that in general, categories of living creatures don't have to be monophyletic.
  - gus_massa 8y ago
    "Fish" is a bad category, or to be more precise from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish#Taxonomy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish#Taxonomy > Fish are a paraphyletic group: that is, any clade containing all fish also contains the tetrapods, which are not fish. For this reason, groups such as the "Class Pisces" seen in older reference works are no longer used in formal classifications. I think we mostly agree, because you wrote > There's no question that in general, categories of living creatures don't have to be monophyletic. But I think that the main effort is to make all the categories monophyletic, and drop/replace the other one when possible. Some non monophyletic categories are very useful in practice and they are keep to make communication easier. The problem is that if you try to make "fish" a monophyletic category you must put "dolphins" inside them, because the dolphins are distant descendants of some fish (as you and me and all mammals). But Pterosaur and Dinosaur are sibling categories, neither of them descend of the other. Using much smaller categories, it is like comparing penguins and orcas (both are black and white, both swim, both have to breath air, both eat fish), but neither of them descend of the other.
selljamhere 8y ago
I disagree. When used to call a human a dinosaur, it is an abstract term. People are fully aware that the referenced person is not actually a prehistoric reptilian. I think referring to all such prehistoric creatures as dinosaurs is problematic because it doesn’t allow for the same obvious distinction. How could one otherwise know if the article refers to all prehistoric reptiles or Dinosauria?
Angostura 8y ago
You're confusing the use of the word as a name for a group of animals with a its use as a metaphor.
- jondubois 8y ago
  I was half-joking; but I do think that when it comes to language, if the majority of people believe something to be true then that consensus is enough to make it true. Languages evolve constantly and the correct use for terminology should be determined by the majority of people. Day-to-day terminology and scientific terminology don't necessarily have to match. There are examples of this in most fields of science and engineering; sometimes complex concepts have to be simplified for regular people.
eftychis 8y ago
I disagree along with the sibling comments. While as it is apparent from the comments to this posts the misconception of pterosaurs/pterodactyls etc classification exists, there were never dinosaurs. I am guessing at some point, in certain parts or all around the world people start making the connection, it existed prior to humans, it must be a dinosaur (or you know they share a suffix). It is similar to a zebra and an alligator have four legs so they must be the same. The average Joe has a pretty distorted image of dinosaurs to begin with (e.g. raptors, T.Rex). Think it like this: assuming you try to discuss about digital storage with a grandparent or old relative. And they say that an SSD is a HDD (sorry late can't think of a better example). To them it makes no difference they save stuff at the end of the day or something like that so might as well be the same. To you they function, are designed and behave differently. So to you a pterosaur is a long dead species, so might as well classify it as a dinosaur. To people who spend a bit of time to familiarize themselves, it is like calling humans marsupials [0]. [0] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/why-a-pterosaur-is-not-a-dinosaur-87082921/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/why-a-pterosau...

pvg 8y ago

Metaphorical use doesn't count as turning something into a generic term. You can call obstinate humans buttheads, and yet, etc. This is more in the 'a gorilla is not a monkey' or 'a dolphin is not a fish' category. Getting this sort of thing wrong is going to get you torn apart by gangs of roaming five-year-olds on your next natural history museum visit.

perl4ever 8y ago
Even though mammals are a subset of the descendants of things that are unquestionably fish, we don't call mammals fish, and we do call things fish that are of separate ancestry, so I feel there is kind of an arbitrary double standard here if we get pedantic about dinosaurs. There's no question that in general, categories of living creatures don't have to be monophyletic.
- gus_massa 8y ago
  "Fish" is a bad category, or to be more precise from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish#Taxonomy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish#Taxonomy > Fish are a paraphyletic group: that is, any clade containing all fish also contains the tetrapods, which are not fish. For this reason, groups such as the "Class Pisces" seen in older reference works are no longer used in formal classifications. I think we mostly agree, because you wrote > There's no question that in general, categories of living creatures don't have to be monophyletic. But I think that the main effort is to make all the categories monophyletic, and drop/replace the other one when possible. Some non monophyletic categories are very useful in practice and they are keep to make communication easier. The problem is that if you try to make "fish" a monophyletic category you must put "dolphins" inside them, because the dolphins are distant descendants of some fish (as you and me and all mammals). But Pterosaur and Dinosaur are sibling categories, neither of them descend of the other. Using much smaller categories, it is like comparing penguins and orcas (both are black and white, both swim, both have to breath air, both eat fish), but neither of them descend of the other.

selljamhere 8y ago

I disagree. When used to call a human a dinosaur, it is an abstract term. People are fully aware that the referenced person is not actually a prehistoric reptilian. I think referring to all such prehistoric creatures as dinosaurs is problematic because it doesn’t allow for the same obvious distinction. How could one otherwise know if the article refers to all prehistoric reptiles or Dinosauria?

Angostura 8y ago

You're confusing the use of the word as a name for a group of animals with a its use as a metaphor.

jondubois 8y ago
I was half-joking; but I do think that when it comes to language, if the majority of people believe something to be true then that consensus is enough to make it true. Languages evolve constantly and the correct use for terminology should be determined by the majority of people. Day-to-day terminology and scientific terminology don't necessarily have to match. There are examples of this in most fields of science and engineering; sometimes complex concepts have to be simplified for regular people.

eftychis 8y ago

I disagree along with the sibling comments. While as it is apparent from the comments to this posts the misconception of pterosaurs/pterodactyls etc classification exists, there were never dinosaurs. I am guessing at some point, in certain parts or all around the world people start making the connection, it existed prior to humans, it must be a dinosaur (or you know they share a suffix). It is similar to a zebra and an alligator have four legs so they must be the same. The average Joe has a pretty distorted image of dinosaurs to begin with (e.g. raptors, T.Rex). Think it like this: assuming you try to discuss about digital storage with a grandparent or old relative. And they say that an SSD is a HDD (sorry late can't think of a better example). To them it makes no difference they save stuff at the end of the day or something like that so might as well be the same. To you they function, are designed and behave differently. So to you a pterosaur is a long dead species, so might as well classify it as a dinosaur. To people who spend a bit of time to familiarize themselves, it is like calling humans marsupials [0]. [0] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/why-a-pterosaur-is-not-a-dinosaur-87082921/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/why-a-pterosau...