• finitebanjo@piefed.worldEnglish
    44·
    9 months ago

    I think a more nuanced answer is better: “Only if you believe mammals and fish are not mutually exclusive.”

    • tyler@programming.devEnglish
      29·
      9 months ago

      I think the even more nuanced answer is that “fish” is not a scientific category so comparing it to mammals makes no sense.

        • tyler@programming.devEnglish
          11·
          9 months ago

          https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish

          In a break from the long tradition of grouping all fish into a single class (‘‘Pisces’’), modern phylogenetics views fish as a paraphyletic group.

          Paraphyly is a taxonomic term describing a grouping that consists of the grouping’s last common ancestor and some but not all of its descendant lineages. The grouping is said to be paraphyletic with respect to the excluded subgroups. In contrast, a monophyletic grouping (a clade) includes a common ancestor and all of its descendants.

          This is in contrast to the class Mammalia which is a complete clade.

          In other words, I could make up a branch of science called foobarthology that studies Jurassic raptors, whales, and the Rock Dove, but that doesn’t mean those things are related, or a ‘true’ scientific group of their own. It just means I put them together for some other reason, either cause it’s easier for the requirements of the job, or I wanted to, or many other reasons including historical.

    • skisnow@lemmy.caEnglish
      42·
      9 months ago

      Continuing a long proud tradition of “midwit” memes being made exclusively by people who think they’re the 145 IQ guy, but are actually the the 55 IQ guy who found a brown hood.

    • teft@piefed.socialEnglish
      6·
      9 months ago

      Hank Green is great but good god the adhd runs strong in that one. Watch some of his vlogbrothers videos and count the number of cuts. It’s like watching Liam Neeson jump a fence.

      • dejected_warp_core@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        9 months ago

        As one of the horde of neurodivergent folks that love Hank’s content, I kind of need it this way. Chris Boden is another one. Long, still, static shots, just punch me right in the attention span and are hard to get through. It takes way more effort than the occasional jump-cut to pull off.

  • BakerBagel@midwest.socialEnglish
    10·
    9 months ago

    You can’t fool me. I’ve read Moby Dick and Melville dedicated an entire chapter about how whales are absolutely fish

  • hperrin@lemmy.caEnglish
    9·
    9 months ago

    Cladistically speaking, whales are just a big colony of eukaryotic clones.

  • azi@mander.xyzEnglish
    9·
    9 months ago

    Broke: Whales are fish because they look like other fish

    Woke: Whales aren’t fish because they’re in the class Mammalia, not Pisces

    Bespoke: Whales are fish any monophyletic group that encompasses all the fishes must also include the clade Tetrapoda

    Artichoke: Whales aren’t fish because fishes are a paraphyletic group that includes the entire clade Vertebrata at the exclusion of the clade Tetrapoda.

    Stick and Poke: Whales are fish because they’ve developed the same bodyplan and are in the same ecological niche as the pelagic fishes.

  • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.socialBannedEnglish
    8·
    9 months ago

    I know a doctor of marine biology who disagrees with your assessment.

    Everyone that doesn’t revel in their fishness is a coward or worse, a creationist.

    • stray@pawb.socialEnglish
      1·
      9 months ago

      I don’t know how anyone could read Moby Dick and not come away convinced of their obvious fishness. Surely one’s nature and behavior are more important than one’s reproductive organs.

    • Semjaza@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
      20·
      9 months ago

      “Fish” isn’t a real type of animal, it’s a term of convenience for similar looking/acting things that humans have lumped together.

      Its taking that back to the medieval level of “whales are fish”… Which ignores that key difference of them breathing air and not having gills.

    • chaos@beehaw.orgEnglish
      9·
      9 months ago

      There isn’t a simple evolutionary definition of “fish”, not the same way there is for, say, mammals. If you found the common ancestor of everything we call a mammal and said “everything descended from this one is also a mammal”, you’d be correct. If you did that for everything we call fish, every animal in the world would be a fish. Also, we decided which animals were fish mostly on vibes, so without a clear definition you can pedantically argue that everything is a fish including mammals.

      • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.socialBannedEnglish
        3·
        9 months ago

        That’s not quite true. A lot of worms, for example, wouldn’t be fish, but all fish would be worms. Most invertebrates also wouldn’t be fish.

  • huf [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    3·
    9 months ago

    people who fish have also always known that whales are fish. not sure about the welsh though, that seems iffy.