Trying to get people to realize birds are full on actual no holds barred dinosaurs on the internet is like playing a constant game of whack-a-mole
The game never ends there’s just another mole to whack
whack whack whack
I understand that you guys aren’t being totally serious, but birds are categorically NOT dinosaurs. They’re BIRDS. Being descended from and very similar to an animal does not make them literally the same.
Bats are mammals. If every mammal except for bats went extinct, bats would still be mammals. This is what happened with birds. They’re a type of dinosaur that evolved within the dinosaur evolutionary tree, and existed alongside other types of dinosaurs until all those other types of dinosaurs were wiped out. Surviving when the other dinosaurs went extinct doesn’t mean they stopped being dinosaurs at any point.
@arctic-nimbus I am not joking, I am being serious. Birds are living dinosaurs.
Dinosaurs are defined as the most recent common ancestor of [Theropods] + [Sauropodomorphs] + [Ornithischians], and ALL OF THAT ANCESTOR’S DESCENDANTS
hence, because birds descend from that ancestor, ALL BIRDS ARE DINOSAURS THE END.
I am a paleontologist and this has been known since 1996 please stop making me play whack a mole. this is googleable. this is on wikipedia. this is in most paleontological sources. this is in the literature. this is in books. this is in jurassic park. this is on this blog in many places. this is on other people’s blogs in many places.
this is, or should be, common. knowledge.
fin
Okay, your condescending reply aside, you haven’t addressed the elephant in the room which is what I brought up in the other thread. I’m descended from a fish. That doesn’t mean I am a fish. You telling me that birds are living dinosaurs doesn’t make any difference to me because you haven’t made a convincing argument why I should categorize them that way as oppose to another way.
Where do you draw the line between them being living dinosaurs and them being something else?
In biology and paleontology, evolutionary groups (clades) are defined to be monophyletic. That is, a clade contains all descendants of its most recent common ancestor. No lineage ever stops being part of a clade, no matter how much it has evolved. If you’re descended from a member of a certain clade, you are in that clade.
Dinosaurs are a clade, which is formally called Dinosauria. Because it’s defined as a clade, then everything that is descended from a dinosaur must also be a dinosaur. Ergo, modern birds are a subgroup of the clade Dinosauria.
Think of it this way. Sauropods, ankylosaurs, therizinosaurs, and birds are each very different from their early ancestors, which would have looked kinda like this:
And yet no sauropod, ankylosaur, or therizinosaur ever stopped being a dinosaur, regardless of how much they evolved. So why would birds be any different? By the same standard that Argentinosaurus, Tarchia, or Therizinosaurus are dinosaurs, birds are dinosaurs.
And yes, humans are lobe-finned fish (Sarcopterygii). The standard applies everywhere.
No, humans are not lobe-finned fish.
That’s called an absurdity.
Perhaps by your definition of reality, humans are lobe-finned fish, if I accept the schema that you so lovingly shove down my throat.
But there is nothing more or less scientific about looking at lobe-finned fish of today, and comparing them to humans, and finding they are completely different things.
So your argument is inherently an opinion! It is a normative statement, not a fact. Stop representing it as a fact.
but it is fact
just because you don’t want it to be doesn’t mean it isn’t
It is a fact though because that’s how common descent works.
Humans evolved from an ancestral ape, and are still apes.
That ape evolved from an ancestral mammal, and it was still a mammal. So we’re also mammals.
That ancestral mammal evolved from an ancestral tetrapod, and was also a tetrapod. So we’re also tetrapods.
And that tetrapod evolved from an ancestral lobe–finned fish, so it was also a lobe–finned fish. So we’re also lobe–finned fish.
This hierarchy of descent is what modern taxonomy is built on. Organisms are classified into groups based on common ancestry, like I outlined above.
A group made up of the last common ancestor and every descendant of that ancestor is called a ‘clade’. Clades are the groups that we classify in taxonomy.
Every descendant of a clade is by definition part of that clade, similarly to how you’re still in the same family as your great great grandparents. You can be very different from your grandparents but you’ll never stop being related to them.
Humans can be very different from other apes, mammals, tetrapods, or lobe–finned fish but that doesn’t mean we stop being related to them, and it doesn’t mean we don’t share ancestors with them.
Because we use these patterns of relatedness to classify organisms we’re part of each of those groups by definition.
Ok so, here’s a style of diagram that I’ve found pretty useful for understanding how animals still remain in their ancestral groups. Each group is contained within the wider group, so whales are within ungulates, which are within mammals, which are within synapsids, which are within tetrapods, which are within sarcopterygii. Lungfish and coelacanths are the only other living groups of lobe-finned fish, and are our closest non-tetrapod relatives.
It’s a very simplified diagram sure, I’ve left out many many intermediate groups in service of making my point clearly without clutter. But hopefully it gets the point across that no matter how granular and detailed you get with the groups, they never stop being inside the larger group they evolved from. You can’t cut out birds and transplant them outside of dinosaurs, they are by definition a member of dinosauria.
Also just to be clear, this is not some made-up opinion held by a little group of dinosaur nuts. This is literally The Standard Method in modern science of classifying living things, this is just how it works.
Also @arctic-nimbus if you’re so adamantly against birds being dinosaurs, do you also not believe that whales or bats or humans are mammals? And if you do why one and not the other? I’m genuinely asking here because I don’t understand why people are so selective when it comes to birds being dinosaurs specifically.
okay but arctic nimbus is right like; yes, within taxonomy birds are dinosaurs and humans are fish but like, y'all’re also ignoring the central point. which is that taxonomy is a social construct, just like the family you compared it to. its arbitrary boxes, created by humans, with very little reflection of or practical use in reality. it is a valuable part of the scientific religion, but it is, like the rest of science, at its core faith based, and largely irrelevant
the names we use and the lines we draw are decided through a lot of messy historical vagueness, but lines of descent and the interrelation of species is an objective reality. Lungfish are more related to humans than they are to tuna, tyrannosaurus is more related to sparrows than it is to a triceratops. That’s not social construct, that is the current understanding of a physical, natural reality.
If you don’t think it matters to you then ignore it, don’t argue with people whose passions and/or jobs are discovering the very real, very physical relations between organisms. Does “fish” mean “non-tetrapod vertebrate” to you? Sure, knock yourself out, but if you want to understand zoology you have to disavow yourself of that notion.
and for what it’s worth, i do in fact think that understanding that birds are a type of dinosaur helps understand dinosaurs (which can be small, intelligent, and probably colorful and loud too) and birds (which can be powerful, dangerous, and are reptilian).
people will literally fucking declare phylogeny a social construct and declare science to be faith before they accept that birds are a type of dinosaur how are you so stubborn about this
Not sure if you purposefully misunderstood them or not, but they were saying that taxonomy, TAXONOMY is a social construct. They never made any claim about the way evolution works. It is a fact that the groups we define these creatures into are socially constructed, invented by humans, and also that those creatures and the way they evolved still exists in reality, because those are two separate things
So again, within the framework of modern taxonomy i don’t thing anyone but that weird nihilist arctic nimbus disagrees birds are dinosaurs, but it should also be recognized that the framework of modern taxonomy was created by humans and as much utility as it has, it’s still socially constructed
Also science is faith based but people need to understand that at least when i point that out im not saying science is a religion im saying people (for good reason) have huge amounts of faith in the scientific method and thats what upholds it.
Folks need to stop doing the transphobe thing and thinking “socially constructed” = “not real” or “bad and needs to be abolished”
So then what exactly is your disagreement with me?
You seemed to have misunderstood burntout-fagdyke’s reblog because you immediately started talking about how the lines of evolution are real as if they’d even mentioned anything other than taxonomy being socially constructed.
The words we use and the lines we draw between clades has been decided by humans, yes. Why is that relevant to this conversation?
what the fuck? who gives a shit? do you know the point of reblogs? you add stuff to the post. i was adding onto what burntout-fagdyke said. what do all my reblogs have to pass the advisory board of acceptable relevance to the post before i can publish them? jfc.
because I’m an actual paleontologist trying to do work in less than optimal conditions and the notes on this post are driving me insane bc every single non-paleontologist schmuck thinks that their opinion on this situation matters in the slightest
i know im late to this but unknown / nth is sooooooo crowley coded 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 im so glad i didn’t listen to it within two weeks of watching good omens because my brainrot levels would’ve been at least a magnitude higher
“we live in an uncaring universe” yeah dude and I live in an uncaring house. and I shit in an uncaring toilet. but do you touch an uncaring lover? do you comfort an uncaring child? do you guide to sleep each night a cold and uncaring self?
“In the same way your heart feels and your mind thinks, you, mortal beings, are the instrument by which the universe cares. If you choose to care, then the universe cares. If you don’t, then it doesn’t.” - Brennan Lee Mulligan, Fantasy High S1E17
fuck “girl lunch” fuck “girl math” a woman is a hairy animal who sweats and grunts and excretes and hungers and gets wrinkly and dies eventually. you have to love that.
ppl are tagging this post with things like ‘ooh i want to meet a woman like this’ or with specific characters which kind of misses the point i was trying to make. ALL WOMEN ARE LIKE THIS. IT STANDS IN CONTRAST TO NOTHING. WRAP YOUR ARMS AROUND IT.
If you’ve ever wondered why people in Hawai'i hate tourists, try to wrap your mind around the fact that there are CURRENTLY, RIGHT NOW, tourists sipping martinis and looking at fish within swimming range of the fresh corpses of local people who couldn’t escape the overnight destruction of their entire town.
Try to comprehend that there are fully functional, high capacity boats passing through the waters in front of an area full of survivors who are stranded and in need of supplies, refusing to help. They are hosting snorkeling tours.
Really think about, try your best to actually picture over two thousand people unhoused and in need of shelter, with nothing but the clothes on their backs and nothing to return to. Understand that the island, stolen land, is littered with hotels full of air conditioned of rooms with beds and showers and toilets, each fully equipped to host hundreds of families for weeks, turning these people away because they’re booked up with tourists who refuse to leave.
And understand that these tourists were offered free transport to return home or be hosted on other islands. Free. Courtesy of local tax dollars. 4,000 wealthy tourists were offered free flights shelter on Oahu and begged to leave the island, BEFORE the survivors were given shelter.
And enough still insisted on remaining and carrying out their vacations that people are left without shelter and resources while they enjoy “their stay in paradise”.
In case this gains any traction, I NEED people to understand that this is not an invitation for mainlanders to get on a soapbox and start telling each other whether or not or how to visit Hawai'i. The tourism situation is complex and difficult and you don’t get it if you haven’t lived through it at minimum wage. You don’t fully understand the complexities and you will not. And you are liable to do more harm by trying to dictate rules and ethics of visiting the islands to each other.
If you want to help, listen to local people. Seek out and boost what they’re saying. Send each other local sources of information. Research from local sources. DO NOT take this crisis as an opportunity to insert your views and speak for us.
