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