News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Bananas Are Berries, Strawberries Aren't by robbrown451 on Monday January 20, 2020 @01:23PM (#22100903)
Yeah and cucumbers are fruit, birds are dinosaurs, ladybugs are not bugs, peanuts are not nuts, etc.

Sometimes I think that scientists should just stick to taxonomic categories or other words that don't conflict with their "common usage" meanings.

(and while we all seem to agree that whales aren't fish, they are certainly within the "bony fish" clade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteichthyes and are a lot closer relatives to a goldfish than are sharks :) )

Re:Bananas Are Berries, Strawberries Aren't by bustadjustme on Monday January 20, 2020 @02:51PM (#22101608)
.... whales certainly aren't bony fish. They're in class Mammalia, which is not within the superclass Osteichthyes. I.e. they're mammals, not fish.
Re:Bananas Are Berries, Strawberries Aren't by robbrown451 on Monday January 20, 2020 @04:21PM (#22102188)
Mammals are tetrapods, which are indeed under Osteichthyes (unless you consider Ostreichtyes to be paraphyletic).

If you look at the cladogram on the wikipedia page I linked, you see a picture of a salamander near the top representing the category Tetrapodomorpha. We (and whales) are also on that branch. Sharks are outside of that whole cladogram, as they are cartilaginous fish. ( * )

In other words, any clade which includes all bony fish also includes mammals.

[*] which means that the most recent common ancestor of sharks and goldfish lived longer ago than the most recent common ancestor of whales and goldfish

Re:Bananas Are Berries, Strawberries Aren't by stjohnswarts on Monday January 20, 2020 @04:53PM (#22102389)
No one considers whales to be bony fish. No one.
Re:Bananas Are Berries, Strawberries Aren't by robbrown451 on Monday January 20, 2020 @07:07PM (#22103148)
Well, go to this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bony_fish

That will redirect from "bony fish" to "Osteichthyes", the name of the scientific category that represents bony fish.

And there is a cladogram on that page. And it includes whales, by virtue of including tetrapods (it shows a picture of a salamander).

It also says on that page "Osteichthyes can be compared to Euteleostomi. In paleontology, the terms are synonymous." And "Euteleostomi presents a cladistic view which includes the terrestrial tetrapods that evolved from lobe-finned fish". And yes, as mentioned, whales are tetrapods.

So, while I didn't say "whales are bony fish", I said "whales are members of the bony fish clade", and I'd say wikipedia agrees with that statement. (to be clear, we humans are also members of the bony fish clade) And if you consider bony fish to be a paraphyletic group, well, then it isn't a clade.