Re: Dinosaurs from La Brea Tar Pits --??--

[Ben Waggoner <bmw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> In a message dated 95-11-29 12:28:37 EST, fgunther@ulabsgi.gsfc.nasa.gov
> (Fred Gunther) writes:
> 
> >Found the following on the WWW.  The gross level of public paleontology 
> >errors has reached a new high (low ??).  Some one at UCB should know 
> >better than  to suggest that dinosaur bones come from the La Brea Tar Pits.
> >
> >--- copy follows --
> >
> >
> >The Sather language gets its name from the Sather Tower (popularly
> >known as the Campanile), the best-known landmark of the University of
> >California at Berkeley.  A symbol of the city and the University, it
> >is the Berkeley equivalent of the Golden Gate bridge.  Erected in
> >1914, the tower is modeled after St. Mark's Campanile in Venice,
> >Italy. It is smaller and a bit younger than the Eiffel tower, and
> >closer to most Americans -- and lovers of Venice of course.  Yet, at
> >307 feet it houses 50 tons of human, dinosaur and other animal bones
> >mostly collected from the La Brea Tar Pits.
> >
> You're partly right. Actually, the sentence is badly ambiguous. It could, for
> example, be taken to mean "human bones, dinosaur bones, and animal bones that
> were mostly collected from the La Brea Tar Pits." Then it would no longer
> imply that human and dinosaur bones had been collected from the La Brea Tar
> Pits.
> 
What the sentence refers to is the bones of birds, such as _Teratornis_, 
that were found in the tar pits, and under a phylogenetic classification
are in fact dinosaurs, phylogeny being the only basis for a rational 
classification. Right, George?

[sheepish, yet sly chuckle]

Seriously, the sentence is ambiguous as it stands, and we'll fix it.
As soon as we can find it; our WWW exhibit has something like 1000
pages, so it may take a while for us to find the offending sentence.
Has anyone got the URL for the page with this turn of phrase? If
so, e-mail it to me off the list.

Ben Waggoner
Dept. of Integrative Biology
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720 USA
bmw@uclink2.berkeley.edu