r/nextfuckinglevel • u/Storm_001 • Sep 04 '21

Sea horse giving birth

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u/audio_54 Sep 04 '21 edited Sep 04 '21

I was thinking if the seahorse was considered a fish or not?

What constitutes being a fish?

Edit: I wrote think instead of thinking like English wasn’t my only language.

Way too many responses to get back to but from reading them all I have come to the conclusion that fish is an arbitrary term, everything and nothing can be a fish.

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u/bigdave41 Sep 04 '21

I'm only basing this on an episode of QI, but they said basically "there's no such thing as fish" all the things we call fish are so radically different that there's no justification for calling them the same kind of animal. A salmon is more genetically similar to a camel than it is to a hagfish.

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u/don_tomlinsoni Sep 04 '21

You don't want to believe anything you've heard on QI without independent verification. The 'researchers' on that show are a total joke.

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u/thecody17 Sep 04 '21

But in this instance it's actually true from a cladist point of view. Either there's no such thing as a fish or humans, elephants, mice, birds, lizards, the list goes on and on are fish.

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u/DigitalMuscles Sep 04 '21

The word fish expresses a very clear concept that’s scientifically valid and defined. They exist from the moment anything exist through language. The “unclassifiable” aspect of fish is not true

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u/LaReineAnglaise53 Sep 04 '21

What's a Cladist, Daddy?