Let's Make "Living Fossils" Term "Extinct"

[Pagurus]

To bring this informative and interesting discussion down to my usual level of discourse:

Living Fossil

[ynot]

To bring this informative and interesting discussion down to my usual level of discourse:

Mioplosus-Animation-TFF-small.gif

Living Fossil

!!!

Pagurus!!

Tony

[sdsnl]

If living fossils is a problem I think dinosaurs is a bigger one, seeing that it is more widely known and causes more confusion. "Saur" means lizard in Latin, and dinosaurs aren't lizards, so isn't it inaccurate to name dinosaurs with "saur"? Also, the use of "saur" in the naming of genera is inconsistent, with some dinosaurs having "saur" in the genus name and some not, and some non-dinosaurs having it in the genus name, making the general public think that mosasaurs, ichthyosaurs, pterosaurs, etc. are dinosaurs. Isn't this in more dire need of rectification?

In the case of living fossils, it may not be a very accurate term, but only when you are looking at the details. Many laymen don't even know what species mean, so they are not gonna misunderstand that living fossils are exactly same species that persisted for millions of years without any change. Their misunderstanding of there being no change between the extinct and extant species lies in their not knowing of differences they are unable to discern, not in the term or concept itself.

If someone is studying comparative paleontology to such an advanced level that they think about whether the term describes organisms on a species level, they should already have enough knowledge to know not to take the term so literally.

If someone thinks the existence of living fossils can serve as evidence to prove creation and disprove evolution, they just have some serious logical flaws. It is not the fault of the term living fossils. The root cause is these people don't understand that even if a species has remained the same over millions of years, evolution could still have occurred, just on other species. And creation and evolution don't have to be mutually exclusive, and they don't have to be the only two possibilities either. It could also be that god created organisms and then they evolved, or nothing was created and nothing evolved, or life happened in some other ways we can't yet imagine. Even if one could prove that evolution couldn't have happened on any species, it still doesn't mean creation must have happened.

Actually, if people just pay attention to the grammar used when living fossils are described, the confusion would be gone. Just by noticing that plural is used, you know it is a group of organisms, not just one species being discussed. Horseshoe crabs are living fossils. T. rex is not a living fossil. In scientific writing, apart from when specifying a certain number of specimens, the singular is always used to describe a species. It's when generalizing something in common within a family, order, etc. that the plural would be used, indicating multiple species are involved.

And I understand that among the organisms called living fossils, the differences between extinct and extant species are within the family level? And they undergo significantly little change relative to the time they have been around for. So in my opinion living fossils is a concept that has some uses and value. While an official definition may be lacking, there's been somewhat of a consensus as to how to use it, and everyone knows that it would be ridiculous to say that fishes are living fossils.

[sdsnl]

p.s.

Fish - singular.

Fish - plural when talking about number of specimens.

Fishes - plural when talking about number of species.

The English language is very handy for scientific communication.

Edited July 15, 2016 by sdsnl

[Ridgehiker]

Sdnl

You make some informative points.

Re 'living fossils' and the extinct and extant species being within the same family. Actually its not a scientific but cultural term so there is no taxonomic definition. It is cultural. The difference can be whatever someone decides. Family, Order, etc...its not something that is in the governance of science.

Re the use of 'saur'. Taxonomy is in Latin and there is priority. The word 'saur' is from Greek and 'can be' translated as lizard but, again, translations are not subject to any governance in the naming of species. Translations are cultural. Therefore, whatever species name is first used in an accepted publication, even if there is a spelling error, etc. , Is the name that is used. There is no higher authority on translation or spelling. Spelling errors can be corrected after the publication by reference to the correction in a future publication ( peer reviewed).

Anyways, all those 'saurs' are equally valid however one wants to translate a word.

Re Fish and the plurals. Thanks clarifying the English use.