@csstrowbridge@mastodon.social
Wikipedia: "A fish is an aquatic, anamniotic, gill-bearing vertebrate animal with swimming fins and a hard skull, but lacking limbs with digits."
Whales don't have gills.
@Jestbill@mastodon.world
Not all fish are aquatic.
Not all fish lay eggs.
Not all fish have fins.
Coelacanths have the same finger-bones we do.
There are plenty of fish with lungs who are losing their gills through evolution.
There are many animals with gills that are not fish.
The definition humans use for fish doesn't stand up to how complex reality is.
@csstrowbridge@mastodon.social Whales don't have gills. Whales are not fish.
Life is complicated and complex.
Words have meanings.
@Jestbill@mastodon.world
"Fish have gills" is not a definition that holds up to biology, because there are animals with gills that are not fish AND THERE ARE FISH WITHOUT GILLS.
Nearly every species of lungfish don't have gills and must breathe air to get oxygen.
"Words have meanings."
Yes, but not all words have meanings that match with reality.
This is like the saying, "I before E except after C." There are too many exceptions for that to be a useful rule.
@csstrowbridge@mastodon.social To claim that there are fish without gills is to ignore the rest of the stated definition.
It also claims that one use of the word somehow negates a different use.
I could just as well claim that lungfish are not really fish.
Words have meanings AND your particular meaning does not rewrite any dictionaries.
@Jestbill@mastodon.world
"I could just as well claim that lungfish are not really fish."
Are eels fish?
What about mudskippers?
Guppies?
Coelacanth?
If you can declare lungfish not fish because they don't confirm to one part of your definition, then where do you draw the line?
"Words have meanings AND your particular meaning does not rewrite any dictionaries."
Older dictionaries defined whales as fish. Words have meanings, but those meanings change with new discoveries.
@csstrowbridge@mastodon.social I've never before been set upon by a sea lion.
Thanks for the introduction.
Now you're going to be blocked before we get into "What is a woman" and "How many genders are there really".
Bye.
Jestbill
C.S.Strowbridge