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Eels are fish

(eocampaign1.com)
178 points speckx | 1 comments | 03 Sep 25 14:02 UTC | HN request time: 0.244s | source
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boesboes ◴[03 Sep 25 14:37 UTC] No.45116372[source]▶
Apparently we are all fish. Or fish don't exist.

To explain: if you want to define a taxonomy in which all things that look like fish and swim are 'fish' then we are too. We are more closely related to most 'fish' than sharks are. I.e the last common ancestor of herring AND sharks is older than our & herring's LCA.

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1. Dylan16807 ◴[03 Sep 25 15:51 UTC] No.45117194[source]▶
> Apparently we are all fish. Or fish don't exist.

I get very annoyed at this argument. It pretends that the only classification systems are strictly following a single ancestor or ignoring ancestry entirely.

The common definition of fish is neither of these. It's paraphyletic. Everything descended from A, except things descended from B and C.