Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!olivea!mintaka!bloom-beacon!eru!kth.se!sunic!mcsun!ukc!pyrltd!tetrauk!rick From: rick@tetrauk.UUCP (Rick Jones) Newsgroups: comp.lang.eiffel Subject: Re: On classification Message-ID: <1135@tetrauk.UUCP> Date: 16 Apr 91 08:09:22 GMT References: <527@eiffel.UUCP> Reply-To: rick@tetrauk.UUCP (Rick Jones) Organization: Tetra Ltd., Maidenhead, UK Lines: 24 In article chl@cs.man.ac.uk (Charles Lindsey) writes: |In <527@eiffel.UUCP> bertrand@eiffel.UUCP (Bertrand Meyer) writes: | |>Here are some extracts from an article entitled ``Dinosaur Dilemmas'' | |>Consistent with this view, the editors include the birds among the |>dinosaurs, as they must on cladistic grouds, because the birds are |>thought to be descended from a particular group of small carnivorous |>dinosaurs. | |Ergo, mammals are dinosaurs also, and hence so are we. I'm not a zoologist, but I always understood that the mammals were an entirely separate species which evolved during the dinosaur era, and only flourished after the dinosaurs' decline. This doesn't have much to do with this newsgroup, except perhaps to illustrate that thorough knowledge and extensive research are a pre-requisite to the effective design of hierarchies. -- Rick Jones, Tetra Ltd. Maidenhead, Berks, UK rick@tetrauk.uucp Any fool can provide a solution - the problem is to understand the problem