this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2024
330 points (94.1% liked)

Science Memes

11021 readers
3452 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.

Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.

Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
330
#notaseagull (mander.xyz)
submitted 3 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
61 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

If you're an ornithologist writing a scientific paper, you'd presumably be using a genus + species in Latin rather than any colloquial name anyway, while still acknowledging that they fall under the umbrella term "seagull" for most people. But I'm a descriptive linguist, rather than prescriptive, and that's really what this meme is about (it's not about seagulls)

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Birds actually have scientific common names and it's completely acceptable to refer to them with those names. They even have standardized bird abbreviations using those names, like Red-tailed Hawk is RTHA. They of course use the latin names too, and those have their own abbreviations (Buteo jamaicensis is BUTJAM) but the common names are handier.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

mmmm, buttjam

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

Here's the thing. You said a "jackdaw is a crow."

Is it in the same family? Yes. No one's arguing that.

As someone who is a scientist who studies crows, I am telling you, specifically, in science, no one calls jackdaws crows. If you want to be "specific" like you said, then you shouldn't either. They're not the same thing.

If you're saying "crow family" you're referring to the taxonomic grouping of Corvidae, which includes things from nutcrackers to blue jays to ravens.

So your reasoning for calling a jackdaw a crow is because random people "call the black ones crows?" Let's get grackles and blackbirds in there, then, too.

Also, calling someone a human or an ape? It's not one or the other, that's not how taxonomy works. They're both. A jackdaw is a jackdaw and a member of the crow family. But that's not what you said. You said a jackdaw is a crow, which is not true unless you're okay with calling all members of the crow family crows, which means you'd call blue jays, ravens, and other birds crows, too. Which you said you don't.

It's okay to just admit you're wrong, you know?