If birds are dinosaurs then what are dinosaurs?

[William Parcher]

The idea is that birds are what they descended from and therefore are dinosaurs. So then dinosaurs too are whatever they descended from.

Surprise ... birds are dinosaurs and dinosaurs are what? If we are clever and accurate to say that birds are dinosaurs then what should we say that dinosaurs are in order to use that same logic with consistency?

 

[theprestige]

It's a lay figure of speech. "Birds are dinosaurs" is fun to say, because it's still a novel idea, that recontextualizes both birds and dinosaurs in our minds. We're still kind of shocked by the idea that chickens are the heirs of the thunder lizards of prehistory. "Birds are dinosaurs" celebrates that shock and excitement.

You don't hear "hairless apes" used to describe humans much, but it does happen, and is essentially the same kind of thing. Really, humans and apes are both descendants of the same family or genus or whatever of primates. Or whatever.

Tracing the Linnaean taxonomy back to find a parent grouping that includes both birds and dinosaurs, similar to the "primate" grouping for humans and apes, is left as an exercise for the reader.

 

[JoeMorgue]

The idea is that birds are what they descended from and therefore are dinosaurs. So then dinosaurs too are whatever they descended from.

Surprise ... birds are dinosaurs and dinosaurs are what? If we are clever and accurate to say that birds are dinosaurs then what should we say that dinosaurs are in order to use that same logic with consistency?

"All Xes are Ys but not all Ys are Xes" simply cannot be giving you this much difficulty.

BTW "Non-Avian Dinosaur" is a not universal but neither uncommon term to describe prehistoric dinosaurs to avoid even the minor amount of confusion you are having.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

The idea is that birds are what they descended from and therefore are dinosaurs. So then dinosaurs too are whatever they descended from.

Surprise ... birds are dinosaurs and dinosaurs are what? If we are clever and accurate to say that birds are dinosaurs then what should we say that dinosaurs are in order to use that same logic with consistency?

I suspect the problem will be with your initial belief that "the idea is that birds are what they descended from".

I don't think that is the idea. Rather it's that birds are one type of dinosaur and haven't evolved into something that doesn't fit the definition of a dinosaur. But I may well be mistaken as I have no expertise. I just listen to an awful lot of episodes of the "Terrible Lizards" podcast.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Also this is all arbitrary categorization that only exists to make things easier to understand and you're not supposed to try and break it.

 

[William Parcher]

Would dinosaurs be land fish or walking fish?

 

[hecd2]

Folk cladistics.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Someone lock the door before Diogenes runs in with a plucked chicken screaming "BEHOLD! A T-REX!"

 

[Foster Zygote]

I guess we just call all eukaryotic life forms "bacteria" and be done with it. Simplifies everything.

 

[theprestige]

Diogenes knows what's up.

 

[Ziggurat]

The idea is that birds are what they descended from and therefore are dinosaurs. So then dinosaurs too are whatever they descended from.

Surprise ... birds are dinosaurs and dinosaurs are what? If we are clever and accurate to say that birds are dinosaurs then what should we say that dinosaurs are in order to use that same logic with consistency?

Tetrapods. Dinosaurs are tetrapods.

 

[smartcooky]

The idea is that birds are what they descended from and therefore are dinosaurs. So then dinosaurs too are whatever they descended from?

"If birds are dinosaurs then what are dinosaurs?"

Dinosauromorphs?

 

[JoeMorgue]

The whole "Dinosaur" term is kind of quaint anyway, describing (at best) two completely separate linages across 3 geological periods.

As XKCD put it by almost literally criteria you can imagine a T-rex is closer to a modern Sparrow than it is to a Stegosaurus.

 

[autumn1971]

Someone lock the door before Diogenes runs in with a plucked chicken screaming "BEHOLD! A T-REX!"

Probably wouldn’t even need to pluck it

 

[JoeMorgue]

This is also why the nitpicking "Pterosaurs and aquatic mammals aren't dinosaurs!" thing is kind of annoying to me, as if "Dinosaur" is some super-specific scientific term.

 

[Olmstead]

That's kind of like asking: "If humans are mammals, then what are mammals?"

 

[ThatGuy11200]

The idea is that birds are what they descended from and therefore are dinosaurs. So then dinosaurs too are whatever they descended from.

Surprise ... birds are dinosaurs and dinosaurs are what? If we are clever and accurate to say that birds are dinosaurs then what should we say that dinosaurs are in order to use that same logic with consistency?

In cladisitcs , each taxonomic group is nested within the one preceding it.

So birds (Aves) are included within the clade Dinosauria.

A very simplified taxonomy would be: Aves -> Dinosauria -> Archosauria -> Amniota -> Tetrapoda -> etc., all the way back to Eukaryota. Then it becomes difficult to classify because of the merging of bacteria and archaea to make eukaryotes.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Okay but let's ask the real question.

If I'm ordering an Apatosaurus prime rib at a restaurant would it be steak or fowl? Do I get White Wine or Red Wine to go with it?

 

[Planigale]

Okay but let's ask the real question.

If I'm ordering an Apatosaurus prime rib at a restaurant would it be steak or fowl? Do I get White Wine or Red Wine to go with it?

If it is the white meat, the white wine if it is the dark meat red wine.

When were you brought up?

 

[Hellbound]

Just make sure you don’t order it at a drive in.


Sent from my volcanic island lair using carrier pigeon.