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Albertonykus — This Needs to Die, Now
Published: 2011-04-08 13:27:31 +0000 UTC; Views: 3097; Favourites: 28; Downloads: 31
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The treating of birds as something "completely different" from other dinosaurs, that is. There is no magical "division" that makes avians fundamentally different from other dinosaurs in general any more than sauropods or ceratopsians are different from non-sauropod and non-ceratopsian dinosaurs. Even going only by superficial similarities, there's nothing that all non-avian dinosaurs share that they don't also share with avians. And deinonychosaurs (for example) are more similar to birds than to (for example) ceratopsians, so any group of related animals that includes both deinonychosaurs and ceratopsians must also include birds. To say otherwise is ridiculous. Besides, no one has the slightest problem with bats and whales both being mammals. The only way you could even come close to logically arguing that birds aren't dinosaurs is to make a case for birds not being of dinosaurian origin, period, but at this point you're more or less out of luck with that, too. Birds are dinosaurs. Fact. It's not any stranger than bats being mammals. There isn't a difference.I've talked about this (baffling) issue previously here .
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Comments: 48
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Related to this, have you noticed a trend to avoid calling traditionally non-avialan dinosaurs "birds"? As said on the DML:
"I'm also noticing an increasing trend to call avialans, rather than Aves/the Archaeopteryx node, "birds". Which I guess is slightly less arbitrary than the Archie node. But I wonder if this is partly behind the desire to constantly re-define Avialae, making sure nothing with a sickle claw is let into the club. i.e. Velociraptor and Troodon must never be called birds, and Archaeopteryx must always be called a bird, so we need to re-define the clades in question with every new analysis that shifts their position (see also the recent Agnolin and Novas phylogeny which re-defined or re-named half the basal paravian clades!)."
Specifically, I'm referring to analyses that recover a (Dromaeosaurus(Troodon, Passer)) topology, which usually refer to troodontids as sister to avialans (wouldn't they be avialans by definition?)
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Agreed that there appears to be an underlying reluctance to exclude traditional dinosaurs from the "birds" umbrella, though I remember hearing from Andrea Cau that the "real" reason Avialae was redefined to exclude troodonts in some recent papers (on which he is a coauthor) was to better capture Gauthier's original intention when coining Avialae (to correspond to the "powered flight" clade).
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And now we have "Averaptora", which is only making things worse.
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Yep, I feel like Averaptora was such a pointless clade to coin considering it's really the same thing as Avialae.
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What about the TV show called "Dinosaur revolution"? If I remember right it was quite clearly stated in that show that birds are just one type of dinosaur.
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It did. I didn't mean to imply that all dinosaur media make this mistake. (There are a number that don't.)
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I know what you mean. It would really be good if the general public would recognize the thing that birds are dinosaurs and that mammals are therapsids. Anyway I think that it would make how evolution works more understandable to people...
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This issue has deeper running roots. Not only birds, other animal groups need updated "definitions" as well. Even most schoolbooks still use the outdated classifications, so it's no wonder you tend to run into people that still believe the old notion that dinosaur=reptile=cold-blooded, thus dumb and slow and covered in scales. And while some do mention that birds have dinosaurian ancestors, they treat them as a wholly different group. Kids should be taught the latest science.
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You have my full agreement. There's certainly a similar problem with other groups such as humans being apes, tetrapods being lobe-finned fish, or snakes being lizards.
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Gets worse.
-mammals are not synapsids
-Synapsids aren't amniotes
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Though what might be the solution? Have some highly respected and famous individual make a world-wide TV broadcast declaring "People of Earth: birds are dinosaurs. Deal with it!"?
Either that, or update the schoolbooks. Since most people don't do much biology-related research beyond what they need to finish school, they usually hold onto the most recent bit of information they had been exposed to, which in their case is either school textbooks or the info their parents give them. But even if they read other scientific books or browse the internet in their free-time (or better yet, if their relatives are paleo-experts), what are the chances their introduction to birds would be that they are dinosaurs?
If kids were taught the latest facts/theories from the beginning, then they would know better from the start, and wouldn't need to be taught/convinced later on about these things.
Though I myself haven't checked what the schoolbooks on biology state lately, so maybe they have been updated while I wasn't looking...
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Very good points. That must be the reason why everyone can accept whales and bats as mammals but not birds as dinosaurs. For what it's worth, my high school biology textbook mentions birds as being of dinosaurian origin, and I think it says that "some scientists think" birds are living dinosaurs. There's also a short bit (one page) on cladistics. Could be worse, but certainly not good enough. Such wishy-washy going-around-the-issue stuff must be a huge contributor to the problem. The TV broadcast doesn't sound like a bad idea... In fact, there's already one show out there that educates young children that birds are theropod dinosaurs, Dinosaur Train! I really like how direct they are, too. No beating around the bush, no clutter, just "Hey, you have three-toed feet! Are you a theropod?" "Yes, I am!"
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But the Lesothosaurus episode breaks that Aesop...
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Oh yeah, that show. I almost forgot about it. That seems like a step in the right direction.
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I'm very glad you made this. Probably the main contribution to paleontology (or evolutionary biology, more appropriately) I want to make is to spread this word!
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It's especially bizarre when you look at something like Archaeopteryx and compare it with Sinornithosaurus or Microraptor. They're ridiculously similar in every possible way, but one is considered "Aves" and the others are not. Hopefully with time, the phylogenetic bracketing way of thinking will completely replace the traditional Linnaean taxonomy way of thinking, but it will be slow going when it comes to the perceptions of the general public.
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Exactly the point I wanted to make with this.
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i agree, birds are dinosaurs the reason is, birds were already there when dinosaurs lived, they are a living group of dinosaurs.
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Aye. Just like how there were many mammal groups in the past but only three survived to the present.
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u are saurornitholestes on jplegacy right ??
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And the most ironic thing? They're exactly the same. XD
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My point exactly. XD
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Heaven knows what's going to happen once all the current living creatures, including ourselves, become extinct. It's funny you mention bats and whales, I bet there are going to be a few false starts for the next "new species" to colonise the planet. XD
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Likely. That happens after mass extinctions quite a lot.
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What I meant was I bet they'd misgroup bats and whales, like some people do birds. XD
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well you have the texas board of education to thank for that form of thinking
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Not necessarily. I'm more bewildered by those who accept that birds evolved from dinosaurs but can't accept birds being dinosaurs, which is a stance that doesn't make any evolutionary sense at all.
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well look at media for the answers, and remember a person can use their logic, but people can't use their logic
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Argh, general media certainly makes things worse.
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Totally true!!!! I'm sick of people saying: "birds are evolved from dinosaurs, but they are not dinosaurs!"
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I know! That doesn't even begin to make sense. Dogs evolved from early mammals, and they're... still mammals. Frogs evolved from early amphibians, and they're... still amphibians. A common misconception about evolution is that things just arbitrarily and instantly change into completely different things (eg: dogs into cats), which is completely untrue.
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True, sadly many people just won't face the facts....
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THANK YOU!!
As a paleontologist-to-be and an avid evolutionist (and a creationism-hater...), I feel something MUST be said about this. This makes me very happy.
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if you are anti-creationist, do not use the word evolutionist, because that's a word creationists use. Just say "I accept evolution".
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Oh, really? In context, I've always seen it used just as 'creationist.' I've seen it that way in a few evolution-based books.... But thanks anyway, lol
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I'm glad you liked it! Birds-are-dinos promotion for the win.
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Really, thank you so much-- finally, someone like me who actually knows it! I try to tell my friends, but they don't believe it.
And some of them are Creationists, too. Do people have a PROBLEM with opening up their mind and maybe seeing that their beliefs are ridiculous? The evidence is right in front of them, but they won't accept it, because they've been brought up believing in Creation, and are stubborn and can't think for themselves....!
(Sorry, I needed to rant)
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I have to agree there (though, fortunately, I've been spared from such firsthand experiences). I know of some creationists on the Internet who are willing accept that birds are dinosaurs, but they're evidently in the minority. (But even without evolution and looking only at physical similarities we'd still reach the same conclusion: [link] )
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