Sea lions are seals

I apologize to my opponent for the confusion, however, I was under the assumption that they would be aware that any conversation about the comparison of two organisms would involve some form of Taxonomy, which is known to have multiple levels of classification: Kingdom, Phylum/Division, Subphylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, and finally Species [1]. When one looks at taxonomy and all the classifications it begs the question: how do we determine what combines organisms together under a certain classification? A. There are multiple ways to define and compare living organisms. It would seem that we as Homo Sapiens have distinct need to classify things. Unfortunately, there is a plethora of techniques and approaches, that we can use to compare species. If you see a comparison, you should be asking if someone is using the Cladistic System (evolutionary similarities), Phenetic systems (physical attributes), or Genetic Systems [2]. Then one must go further and ask if a person is considering sexual or environmental behavior, morphological function, DNA, RNA, etc [3]. As we can see, the answers to these questions become complex and add to the difficulty of classification. Also, many names in the world are attributed to the first person that coined the term, however, that person may have been completely wrong in their logic, causing bias or misinterpretation. Thus, as stated before, it is important to know what level you are comparing two organisms and what methods they used to come to those conclusions. B. Not all levels are equal and not all names are valid. 1. Species would be the best level for comparison as it is most specific. As stated before determining the different groupings in a taxonomy can be difficult, even more so when you go higher in levels of classification (more general). When you start from the top you have many exceptions to rules, and as you get more specific you are then able to better distinguish and compare two different objects. When you try to compare things with umbrella terms, you start to get some challenges in your logic, for example; All squares are parallelograms. All squares and rectangles are quadrilaterals. However, one should not make the mistake to think then that all quadrilaterals are parallelograms, and not all parallelograms are squares [4]. The same can be said for taxonomy levels, unless you are talking about species, you will have limitations to your use and claim that all of organism falls under a certain category and vice versa. 2. We are a world of misnomers and misconceptions. Unfortunately in history, religion, politics and science many people fall into the fallacy of tradition (argumentum ad antiquitatem), where simply we are reluctant to amend something that has already been established, whether it be a law, ideology, or name. The downside of this, especially in science, if first person was wrong, then we all have it wrong, or more specifically we are using a misnomer [5]. Briefly we have been exposed to many misconceptions based on the wrongful naming of things: spiders are not insects, star/jellyfish are not fish, Chinese checkers is not from china, global warming is...well, something, etc [6,7]. In the case of taxonomy, we are continuously making amendments to the grouping of organisms based on new techniques and findings that were not available to the people who coined the classification/name in the past. C. Sea Lions and Seals have some interesting differences. In the case of sea Lions and seals, it is important to investigate their similarities and differences that have placed them in the particular groupings they are today (although this is constantly fluid). Firstly, all seals and sea lions are Pinnipeds (fin-footed) marine animals [8]. However, this also includes walruses and fur seals, which are an ambiguous group that causes much debate in their current placement. In fact “fur seals are named misleadingly because they are apart of the Otariidae family with sea lions,” and amongst sea lions and seals there are distinctions between diet, morphological function, and behavior [9]. It is interesting consider that they would be called the same since these were the major ways of distinguishing animals apart before the mid-1900s. Most studies now try to incorporate genetic studies as well as morphological (skull) studies to distinguish organisms in groups, which in turn comes up with more confusion and amendments to the lineage. In fact it is important to note that original classifications of these animals (sea lions) began in the 1800’s, and studies now show that fur seals and some other species of sea lions may have been placed under the wrong lines [10]. In short, the best that we can say about differing organisms is that they may or may not similarities, depending on what study is being conducted. We cannot therefore claim umbrella names for divergent organisms, and must respect their differences. Sources: 1. http://www.nmnaturalhistory.org... 2. http://www.biology4kids.com... 3. http://users.rcn.com... 4. http://www.math.com... 5. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com... 6. http://mentalfloss.com... 7. http://listverse.com... 8. http://what-when-how.com... 9. http://nmlc.org... 10. http://www.researchgate.net...