army1987 comments on Rationality Quotes March 2012 - Less Wrong

4 Post author: Thomas 03 March 2012 08:04AM

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Comment author: [deleted] 31 March 2012 09:01:58AM *  1 point [-]

There would be no point in defining fish monophyletically anyway, as it would then be just a synonym of craniates. (Also note that “apes, i.e. non-human hominoids, do not include humans” is a tautology but “fish, i.e. non-tetrapod craniates, do not include humans” is not.)

Comment author: [deleted] 31 March 2012 06:27:09PM *  0 points [-]

(Of course, you could then say “There would be no point in defining apes monophyletically anyway, as it would then be just a synonym of hominoids.” But hominoids is a much uglier word, and hominoids/hominids/hominines/etc. are much harder to remember than apes/great apes/African apes/etc. (plus, my spell checker baulks at some of the former, FWIW). (See this proposal to rename the scientific names of the clades.)