Exclavius wrote:
there is a LOT of conflict on the subject... But i do believe that the "new" standard consensus is that they are reptiles. Dawkins refers to them as such, and there are few biologists that I would trust more.
LinkYour link says:
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Yes, birds are reptiles. It is true the birds were previously placed in their own class, class Aves, however recent genetic evidence tells us that they are in fact reptiles. Modern birds most likely evolved from small two-legged dinosaurs called theropods.
Unlike other reptiles that are ectotherms (a term more accurate than cold-blooded), birds are endotherms, meaning they use their own metabolism to maintain a constant body temperature.
This may confuse many people, but cladistics has become the most widely used method in systematics as it clarifies evolutionary relationships that are not apparent in other taxonomic classifications.
I found another wikianswer that phrased it a little differently:
Quote:
Traditionally, the amniotes are classified in 3 distinct classes: birds are in Aves. turtles, crocodilians, lizards, snakes, and extinct reptiles like dinosaurs, ptersosaurs, therapsids, synapsids, etc. are in Reptilia, and the mammals in Mammalia. This arrangement works well and is accepted by most scientists world wide for over 150 years.
And then some paleontologists who subscribed to cladistic dogma came along in the 1980's and want to upset the apple cart. They want to divide the amniotes into 2 classes: Reptilia and Mammalia. They put all birds within Reptila, and transfer all synapsid and therapsid reptiles from Reptilia to Mammalia. According to these cladists, then, many reptiles which were not directly ancestral to mammals (nor did they ever evolve any mammalian features such as hair) are now part of their "Mammalia." That sort of classification is "impractical, destructive and scientifically untenable" according to Ernst Mayr, the Harvard evolutionary biologist.
Since the cladists ignore the wisdom of the great minds of the past, they therefore continue to use their classification, while most of the sane world continue the traditional Reptilia, Aves and Mammalia arrangement. Therefore there are today 2 different ways to classify birds: the sane traditional way (birds not included in Reptilia), and the cladistic paleontologist's impractical way (birds included in Reptilia).
Both mention "cladist" which is a word unfamiliar to me, so I had to look it up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cladist
This isn't what's being taught in basic classes yet. Linnaean taxonomy is still the norm in high school and Bio 101 classes. So I'm going to stick with Linnaean for now because it's still considered to be the fundamental teaching and phylogenetic nomenclature is still very cutting-edge and theoretical and apparently has no more place in a classroom at present than intelligent design.
This, of course, may change. I was among the first group of schoolchildren to be taught about continental drift. Scientists were talking about it amongst themselves for at least a hundred years prior, but it was only in my childhood that it was considered fundamental enough to teach to us third-graders (at the same time, it was finally introduced into GEOL 101 classes in universities.) When phylogenetic nomenclature replaces Linnaean taxonomy in high schools and introductory biology classes in universities, then I'll bother learning the new system. Until then, it's something interesting but far too obscure to catch my interest.
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31 May 2010, 9:08 pm
