… 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 1 year ago
Sorry bro, all fish are vertebrates
piccolo@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
What about starfishes? Checkmate.
DancingBear@midwest.social 1 year 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 1 year 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 1 year ago
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish
SuperNovaStar@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 year 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.