Posted: Jul 15, 2017 10:24 pm
I think AronRa is making a case that the word "monkey" should change its meaning to reflect modern cladistics. The word "monkey" is currently most often used as excluding apes and humans, so it doesn't refer to a clade, as Wikipedia says:
AronRa is one of those making the "frequent arguments" of the last sentence.
In the same way, as theropod points out, birds are in the same evolutionary group as crocodiles, and are now classified, at least by some zoologists, as being in a group "Reptilia" (cladogram here) - perhaps the ordinary usage of "reptile" would be better changed to include birds?
Wikipedia wrote:Scientific classifications are now more often based on monophyletic groups, that is groups consisting of all the descendants of a common ancestor. The New World monkeys and the Old World monkeys are each monophyletic groups, but their combination is not, since it excludes hominoids (apes and humans). Thus the term "monkey" no longer refers to a recognized scientific taxon. The smallest accepted taxon which contains all the monkeys is the infraorder Simiiformes, or simians. However this also contains the hominoids (apes and humans), so that monkeys are, in terms of currently recognized taxa, non-hominoid simians. Colloquially and pop-culturally, the term is ambiguous and sometimes monkey includes non-human hominoids.[8] In addition, frequent arguments are made for a monophyletic usage of the word "monkey" from the perspective that usage should reflect cladistics.[9][10][11][12]
AronRa is one of those making the "frequent arguments" of the last sentence.
In the same way, as theropod points out, birds are in the same evolutionary group as crocodiles, and are now classified, at least by some zoologists, as being in a group "Reptilia" (cladogram here) - perhaps the ordinary usage of "reptile" would be better changed to include birds?