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1400s: Whales are furious sea-gods
1600s: Whales are big fish
1800s: Whales at not fish, they are mammals
2000s: Whales are big fish
2200s?: Whales are furious sea-gods
I recently read about a living whale that had a late 19th century harpoon stuck through its head. I didn’t fact check it, but if true, furious sea gods feels like a valid reinterpretation
2000s: Actually, fish aren’t fish
https://www.sciencealert.com/actually-there-is-no-such-thing-as-a-fish-say-cladists
Or, conversely, mammals are fish https://theconversation.com/the-absurdity-of-natural-history-or-why-humans-are-fish-69384
that’s a dumb way to categorise things, like it’s an attempt to create a categorisation system that works against how we use language. it’s less “either everything is a fish or nothing is a fish” and more “we decided to take the meaningful word “fish” and devoid it of meaning for the purpose of making our graphs make sense”, what about the definitions of the word “fish” that aren’t based entirely on one specific point of view of a subgroup of scientist?
we use language in different contexts. In the food store “fruit” has one meaning, while in a botany paper, it has another.
This doesn’t say theres no such thing as fish generally, it says there is no useful definition for it in a biological setting.
yeah i get that this perspective can be helpful in specific contexts, what annoys me is that it’s presented as universal, “no such thing as fish”. i would appreciate added clarity as to the point of view of the speaker, so such statements don’t come off as general words everyone should just accept as truth
Taxonomists will be the first to tell you the field itself isn’t an exact science. I think some people find that to be more exiting.
and linguists will be first to tell you that languages are living, fluid, and made up for the purpose of communication
and yet people started getting mad at the mere concept of pronouns
Nice meme. I think this is true of taxonomy in the broadest sense as well. Just look at how mad people get about pronouns for one example.
Yet it’s always the unclassified stuff that makes life fun.
And the IAU got it wrong when they reclassified Pluto. Jupiter and mercury belong in the same category but the moon and mercury don’t? Get the fuck outta here
I’ve heard (from people who have credentials in this stuff) that the people in the room at the time were mostly orbital mechanics people. The planetary scientists weren’t there. That’s why you have this “cleared its orbit” rule. If there were more planetary science people in the room, Pluto might still be considered a planet. And it may yet change back.
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