Are Dinosaurs Extinct? Modern Birds Connect us to Our Ancient Past

[Kendel]

Thanks for further translation! That helps, too.

With your (@T_aquaticus and @Paraleptopecten) help above, I think I can draw an analogy to classification of library information. Sorry to mangle your work Timothy.

@Paraleptopecten

Things are often far more complex than initially guessed, especially in biology [information science]. …Once a group [class, subclass and cutter number] are confidently resolved, then a more cladistic approach is appropriate [the call number and subject headings can be assigned], but if none of the clades [subclasses or cutter numbers] have good support, we should probably something that is likely paraphyletic [use the subclass, or even the broader class], but at least [with the aid of subject headings] people know what it means [and how to find it].

Catalogers are some of the most amazing people.

[T_aquaticus]

@Kendel

I think I can draw an analogy to classification of library information.

Another analogy would be a photograph. If we start with an extremely out of focus image we can’t really tell what is going on. We can make some guesses, but we usually have to go with very vague general descriptions. As the image comes into focus we get more and more information and can make better supported conclusions of what the image is about.

The same applies for categorizing life. Modern species can lack a lot of the information we need to understand the picture of their relationships to other species. Over time, we can get more info from fossils and DNA comparisons which allow us to get a focused picture of how that group works.