On 7/1/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
Dolphins are whales.
I've just looked that one up, actually, and according to Wikipedia, the term "Whale" is ambiguous. It can be a general term for all cetaceans (which includes dolphins) or it can refer to just those cetaceans which are not dolphins or porpoises. You learn something every day...
In the Wikipedia vernacular, oftentimes anything can be anything once compromise has removed knowledge.
The article then goes on to discuss cetaceans, which dolphins are, as well as whales.
Dolphins are whales, and in spite of the crappy, useless, and knowledge-less introductory sentence, this article is about whales, including dolphins, not about the Mysticeti and non-dolphin, non-porpoise families of whales in the Odontoceti.
That's a taxonomic boondogle of rare form for Wikipedia, here, we're going to talk about a group and it's two big subgroups in their entirety, except for in one subgroup we're going to declare some member groups different from all other member groups.
I don't like what I learned here.
KP