… and Wikipedia states that the category of “fish” is paraphylatic, meaning that it is defined by convention rather than ‘fact’ and its boundaries can be argued, since it excludes some of the descendants of fish.
also, as pointed out, we use the word fish to describe lots of things that are not included in this definition, like starfish and crayfish.
DancingBear@midwest.social 10 months ago
Sorry bro, all fish are vertebrates
piccolo@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
What about starfishes? Checkmate.
DancingBear@midwest.social 10 months ago
That made me chuckle, but because this is a science meme forum, I will just clarify that starfish are not fish.
SuperNovaStar@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 months ago
Source?
Because all the sources I’ve come across say that “fish” is not a monophylatic classification and is essentially arbitrary.
DancingBear@midwest.social 10 months ago
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish
SuperNovaStar@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 months ago
… and Wikipedia states that the category of “fish” is paraphylatic, meaning that it is defined by convention rather than ‘fact’ and its boundaries can be argued, since it excludes some of the descendants of fish.
also, as pointed out, we use the word fish to describe lots of things that are not included in this definition, like starfish and crayfish.