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On 25 January 2022, it was proposed that this article be moved from Cathetosaurus to Camarasaurus lewisi. The result of the discussion was moved. |
As far as I am aware, more or less all published literature on C. lewisi in recent years has regarded it as a species of Camarasaurus. The one claim to the contrary is an unpublished study from the 2013 SVP meeting, the abstract of which is the basis provided in the article for treating the genus as valid. However, one of the authors of the abstract has apparently abandoned the idea, as reflected in some of the citations I recently added to the article. Furthermore, what appears to be a poster on the research by the authors of that abstract concludes that Cathetosaurus is synonymous with Camarasaurus: [1]. Frustratingly, there's a lack of recent published research to explicitly weigh in on the debate, despite the clear lack of support for the idea of Cathetosaurus as a valid taxon. I think this page should probably be merged with Camarasaurus. Ornithopsis ( talk) 21:03, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: moved. per WP:COMMONNAME. Recent sources favour the proposed name. ( closed by non-admin page mover) Vpab15 ( talk) 18:08, 12 February 2022 (UTC)
Cathetosaurus → Camarasaurus lewisi – Cathetosaurus is widely regarded as a junior synonym of Camarasaurus, with only a single (not peer-reviewed) conference abstract disagreeing in recent years—and it appears that the actual conference presentation associated with the abstract concluded that Cathetosaurus was invalid after all (see above). Multiple papers published since the abstract have continued to assign C. lewisi to Camarasaurus. I see nothing wrong with keeping this article as its own page, as there are several things to say about it that are specific to this species and not other members of the genus (mostly pertaining to taxonomic history), but it should be about the valid species Camarasaurus lewisi, not the invalid genus Cathetosaurus. As such, I am proposing we rename this page to Camarasaurus lewisi; I would also be open to simply merging this page into Camarasaurus. Ornithopsis ( talk) 00:05, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
Oppose. We have to be careful here. When dinosaur genera are considered synonyms, this usually means their type species are deemed identical. This is not the case here. So, we have to ask ourselves: in what way is Cathetosaurus lewisi "invalid"? It is not nomenclaturally invalid, for it was validly named. Was it then empirically shown to be part of Camarasaurus? No, because the concept Camarasaurus has no published operational definition (yet), so it is in principle impossible to provide scientific proof for an assignment to Camarasaursus. What you refer to as a consensus, is nothing more than a bunch of paleontologists being intellectually lazy and either clinging, against their better judgement, to the protoscientific Linnaean system, or avoiding the tiresome work of splitting the genus. So, there is nothing "invalid" about the name Cathetosaurus. It's just a matter of choice, the lazy choice being for Camarasaurus lewisi and the competent choice being for Cathetosaurus. Of course, Wikipedia is not a biology textbook. The leeway allowed by WP:Common names had best been used to provide the reader with a title which is the least confusing and the most likely to be the term causing him to consult an encyclopedia.-- MWAK ( talk) 08:56, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
We have to be careful here. When dinosaur genera are considered synonyms, this usually means their type species are deemed identical.Tell that to Anatosaurus, Archaeornis, Elosaurus, Eobrontosaurus, Seismosaurus, and Morosaurus.
in what way is Cathetosaurus lewisi "invalid"? It is not nomenclaturally invalid, for it was validly named.You're completely right, C. lewisi is a valid species. It is currently assigned to Camarasaurus, in the combination Camarasaurus lewisi.
No, because the concept Camarasaurus has no published operational definition (yet), so it is in principle impossible to provide scientific proof for an assignment to Camarasaursus. What you refer to as a consensus, is nothing more than a bunch of paleontologists being intellectually lazy and either clinging, against their better judgement, to the protoscientific Linnaean system, or avoiding the tiresome work of splitting the genus.The fact that you don't like the fact that this species is consistently called Camarasaurus lewisi in the published literature, and have philosophical criticisms of the decision to do so, does not give us the right to do otherwise. Remember, we can't use original research here, and I think your opinion that the consensus of the peer-reviwed literature is wrong counts as such. Besides, there exists an unpublished taxonomic revision of Camarasaurus ( this poster) that concludes that C. lewisi belongs to Camarasaurus, so no, the inclusion of C. lewisi in Camarasaurus is probably not mere laziness.
The leeway allowed by WP:Common names had best been used to provide the reader with a title which is the least confusing and the most likely to be the term causing him to consult an encyclopedia.WP:COMMONNAMES hardly gives us the right to present as correct a different scientific name for a taxon than the one used in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. Also, Camarasaurus lewisi gets 103 results on Google Scholar, whereas Cathetosaurus lewisi gets only 22, most of which are not peer-reviewed papers. As such, it is Camarasaurus lewisi that is in fact the common name. Do you really think that using a less-common, incorrect name would be less confusing?
I think I've read multiple places that Camarasaurus is considered overlumped...Vague grumblings by splitters that they think Camarasaurus is overlumped because it has more than one species in it are not our concern until there's actually a peer-reviewed study proposing an alternative taxonomy. Our duty here is not to predict hypothetical future taxonomic revisions (see: WP:CRYSTAL), it is to present the consensus of the scientific literature. That consensus is very clearly in favor of calling the species in question Camarasaurus lewisi. Even if Camarasaurus were to be shown to be overlumped, there is no guarantee that the genus Cathetosaurus in particular would become viewed as valid again. Ornithopsis ( talk) 23:04, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
Any source using the name Camarasaurus lewisi is not a reliable source as to a scientific consensus, as such a consensus would by its nature be unscientific.Your reasoning is tautological: you have seemingly decided that the name Camarasaurus lewisi is, a priori, incorrect, and therefore that any evidence I provide supporting the use of the name is inadmissable.
Should we want to use Google as an argument, the more fair comparison would be between "Camarasaurus lewisi" for which I get 2070 hits, and "Cathetosaurus", 258 000 hits. In limiting ourselves to Google Scholar, we forget the typical reader will not be a scholar.Apples to oranges. A two-word exact phrase is naturally going to be less common than a single word. A statement like "Cathetosaurus is a junior synonym of Camarasaurus" or "Camarasaurus contains four species: C. grandis, C. lentus, C. lewisi, and C. supremus" would support use of "Camarasaurus lewisi" without necessarily using the exact term. I can aver that the majority of results turned up by my Google Scholar search do indeed support using "Camarasaurus lewisi".
It is just a prevalent contingent convention within a very small circle of persons.That "very small circle of persons" you refer to is also known as "almost every expert in the relevant field." The very notion of taxonomic nomenclature itself is a "prevalent contingent convention"—it is not some platonic entity that exists independently of the terms scientists actually use!
But by asking for reliable sources at this point, you are committing a category mistake: we need reliable sources for the text, not for our judgment whether sources are reliable.Nearly all reliable sources to discuss C. lewisi use Camarasaurus lewisi, not Cathetosaurus lewisi, as the correct name for the taxon. You are the one who has made the claim that those sources are not reliable; it is on you to provide evidence for that claim.
You could make a much more cogent argument.So could you—your arguments are both fallacious and in violation of Wikipedia policy.
An unpublished abstract by Tschopp apparently puts Cathetosaurus as a seperate species from Camarasaurus, so I think the seperation has some validity to it.As I have already said more than once, a poster that appears to correspond to the same study concludes that Cathetosaurus is invalid, and moreover, a more recent paper by Tschopp and colleagues has assigned SMA 0002 and C. lewisi to Camarasaurus. As such, it appears that Tschopp has changed his mind since writing the abstract—and regardless, a single non-peer-reviewed abstract of an unpublished study cannot overturn the consensus of the published literature, which is that Camarasaurus lewisi is the name that should be used.
Each instance of Cathetosaurus is a reliable source as to the occurrence of this instance, no matter how unreliable that source might otherwise be in its content.That is not a reasonable interpretation of WP:COMMONNAME or WP:RELIABLE.
Am I committing a forbidden synthesis by bringing this up?Yes, you are. You are making a novel intepretation of the sources to come to a conclusion not present in any of them, namely "Cathetosaurus is valid because McIntosh et al. did not adequately justify their synonymization of it with Camarasaurus." In any case, we clearly have irreconcilable differences about how to interpret Wikipedia policy, and whether the consensus of experts in a given field is relevant, so I'm not sure if continuing this discussion without input from other editors is productive. Maybe FunkMonk, Hemiauchenia, Lythronaxargestes, or IJReid might have something to say? Ornithopsis ( talk) 17:23, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
Cathetosaurus lewisi was lumped into Camarasaurus, with the osteology of the specimen in 1996. Since then, papers and books (eg The Dinosauria 2004; Mannion ea 2013; Upchurch ea 2021) retained the genera as synonyms without comment, until the conference abstract of Mateus and Tschopp in 2013. The Sauropod Facts and Figures book (Molina & Larramendi 2020) follows the Catheto split. That about sums up the entire literature on Cathetosaurus, so I can't conclude that there is really any consensus. A book on either side, two recent papers lumping without comment, and one conference abstract splitting as the result of a detailed analysis (embargoed information that shouldn't be revealed notwithstanding). I don't think there's compelling evidence to either retain or rename the article, so I would advocate to leave it as it is. IJReid {{ T - C - D - R}} 18:21, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
An unpublished study suggested splitting the two genera again, based on the recognition of a second specimen, but subsequent research by one of the authors of that study has since concluded this specimen belonged to Camarasaurus after all. Subsequent research has referred to C. lewisi as a species of Camarasaurus, including research by one of the authors of the unpublished study.The first sentence is a reference to Tschopp et al. 2014/2016 (online-first/final date), which states:
[SMA 0002] It was identified as Cathetosaurus, based on the morphology of the pelvic girdle and dorsal transverse processes (Mateus and Tschopp 2013), but a more recent preliminary specimen-based phylogenetic analysis favors an identification as Camarasaurus (ET, unpublished data).As such, the claim made in the first sentence is fully supported by the source provided, with Tschopp explicitly stating that the results of his research have changed since the 2013 abstract. So you're right, it isn't "strongly suggested" that the results have significantly changed, it's explicitly stated. There are at least three papers by Tschopp that regard C. lewisi as belonging to Camarasaurus: Tschopp et al. 2015A:
Hundreds of bones of the four established species C. supremus Cope, 1877 (the type species), C. grandis (Marsh, 1877), C. lentus (Marsh, 1889), and C. lewisi (Jensen, 1988) were collected in the North American, Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation, covering a large part of its spatial and temporal range.Tschopp et al. 2015B:
...Camarasaurus also appears to show intrageneric variation: C. lewisi has narrow troughs throughout its bifurcated presacral vertebrae, whereas other Camarasaurus species have wide bases.and Tschopp and Upchurch 2018, which includes BYU 9047 in a table of Camarasaurus specimens. Perhaps all of those are incidental mentions, but they hardly suggest Tschopp is committed to the notion of Cathetosaurus validity. As such, the second sentence you removed is also supported by multiple sources. I don't appreciate your putting words in my mouth or falsely accusing me of making OR, unsourced statements. Ornithopsis ( talk) 02:30, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
Support. I cannot understand where MWAK is coming from. Wikipedia is not beholden to the gold standard of taxonomy, it is beholden to the actual usage in the literature. See also the variety of terrible or malformed published names that are necessarily transcribed verbatim onto Wikipedia. If a majority of recently published papers use Camarasaurus lewisi, the article is titled Camarasaurus lewisi. It really is that simple. Lythronaxargestes ( talk | contribs) 18:10, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
Oppose I think keeping Cathetosaurus seperate would be the best course of action to take, at least until a clear consensus on the genus' validity can be achieved. -- TimTheDragonRider ( talk) 17:26, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
Besides, if the article is going to be moved, shouldn't it be merged into Camarasaurus itself? -- TimTheDragonRider ( talk) 17:37, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
It was identified as Cathetosaurus, based on the morphology of the pelvic girdle and dorsal transverse processes (Mateus and Tschopp 2013), but a more recent preliminary specimen-based phylogenetic analysis favors an identification as Camarasaurus (ET, unpublished data).nor assignment of SMA 0002 to Camarasauridae serves as unequivocal support of Cathetosaurus validity; one could say ""Jane" was identified as Nanotyrannus, but more recent research favors an identification as Tyrannosaurus" without necessarily implying Nanotyrannus is valid, for instance. Could you link to the SVPOW post that says Cathetosaurus is valid? I agree that SVPOW is a reliable enough source to merit mention in the article (I'd weigh its reliability as on par with a conference abstract but below a peer-reviewed paper, based on my reading of WP:RELIABLE), although it won't sway me that Camarasaurus lewisi is the preferable name for this article, because there has never been a peer-reviewed counterargument to McIntosh et al. 1996's synonymization. Your argument that Cathetosaurus is a more flexible article title for use on Wikipedia is a fair point, but I don't think it's enough to overcome the fact that Cathetosaurus is generally regarded as invalid. Redirects exist, after all, so we have that flexibility regardless. Moreover, I think that Cathetosaurus should not be included in a template without at least some indication that its validity is questionable. Despite our disagreements, though, I do want to thank you for responding to my request for comment on the issue, and I think we have made progress on at least improving the article, if not coming to an agreement on the title. Ornithopsis ( talk) 19:34, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
Support. Per the detailed survey by Ornithopsis above, it seems pretty clear that Camarasaurus lewisi is the most widely used name for this taxon in relevant primary literature. Albertonykus ( talk) 15:02, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
Weak Support - I was initially swayed towards oppose by IJReid's point about whether the continuing Camarasaurus lewisi uses are significant or not, but Ornithopsis' above explanation seems to pretty clearly demonstrate that even restricting things to studies that meaningfully weigh in on taxonomy does not settle things in favor of a distinct genus - which, as the newer alternative proposal, has the burden on proof on it. That said, things very much could go either way so I'm not of an especially strong mind towards one name or the other. LittleLazyLass ( Talk | Contributions) 16:29, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
Weak Support - Ignoring the unstable status of Cathetosaurus "behind the scenes" and going only by recorded usage, it seems evident to me that the consistent incidental use of C. lewisi as a species of Camarasaurus is indicative of it being the accepted taxonomy following McIntosh 1996 up until 2013-14, thereby setting precedent for its usage. From 2014 onwards following the two Tschopp et al. abstracts, outside of papers explicitly acknowledging the suggested split, the fact that authors have continued to refer to C. lewisi as a species of Camarasaurus in incidental usage, rather than adopting Cathetosaurus, leads me to support renaming the article to Camarasaurus lewisi (or to merge it with Camarasaurus, if that is preferred). In my opinion, I believe that using Cathetosaurus as the title gives undue weight to the suggestion that it constitutes a distinct genus, as it has not yet been adopted as the name in prevalent usage over the continued use of Camarasaurus lewisi, regardless of whether either option is likely to be substantiated.
That being said, I do not have a strong opinion on this, and I can very much see the utility of the visibility of the genus-level title outside of the article itself, hence the choice of weak support. I would certainly not pursue the issue if the final decision ultimately was to keep the genus-level title, and I find the current state of the text satisfactory for highlighting the potential generic synonymy. Nonetheless, I emphasise that I ultimately agree with the logic for using Camarasaurus lewisi as the article title and consider it to be the more appropriate option. DrawingDinosaurs ( talk | contribs) 19:49, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
Weak Oppose for now Despite the fact that Camarasaurus lewisi seems to be ever so slightly more common in the general public, and very common in scientific literature, there is still no exact scientific consensus. As for now, with the article adequately addressing this issue, I think that keeping the two articles separate is our best currently available option. I personally believe that the articles can and probably will be merged at some point in the future, but it is just too soon to tell at this point. Logosvenator wikiensis ( talk) 16:19, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
@ Ornithopsis:, in your most recent article you've decided to start the article with the name Camarasaurus lewisi. However, as the article's name is still Cathetosaurus, would it not make more sense to keep Cathetosaurus as the first mentioned name? (I made this post instead of simply reverting your edit, no reason we can't discuss it right?) -- TimTheDragonRider ( talk) 11:35, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
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On 25 January 2022, it was proposed that this article be moved from Cathetosaurus to Camarasaurus lewisi. The result of the discussion was moved. |
As far as I am aware, more or less all published literature on C. lewisi in recent years has regarded it as a species of Camarasaurus. The one claim to the contrary is an unpublished study from the 2013 SVP meeting, the abstract of which is the basis provided in the article for treating the genus as valid. However, one of the authors of the abstract has apparently abandoned the idea, as reflected in some of the citations I recently added to the article. Furthermore, what appears to be a poster on the research by the authors of that abstract concludes that Cathetosaurus is synonymous with Camarasaurus: [1]. Frustratingly, there's a lack of recent published research to explicitly weigh in on the debate, despite the clear lack of support for the idea of Cathetosaurus as a valid taxon. I think this page should probably be merged with Camarasaurus. Ornithopsis ( talk) 21:03, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: moved. per WP:COMMONNAME. Recent sources favour the proposed name. ( closed by non-admin page mover) Vpab15 ( talk) 18:08, 12 February 2022 (UTC)
Cathetosaurus → Camarasaurus lewisi – Cathetosaurus is widely regarded as a junior synonym of Camarasaurus, with only a single (not peer-reviewed) conference abstract disagreeing in recent years—and it appears that the actual conference presentation associated with the abstract concluded that Cathetosaurus was invalid after all (see above). Multiple papers published since the abstract have continued to assign C. lewisi to Camarasaurus. I see nothing wrong with keeping this article as its own page, as there are several things to say about it that are specific to this species and not other members of the genus (mostly pertaining to taxonomic history), but it should be about the valid species Camarasaurus lewisi, not the invalid genus Cathetosaurus. As such, I am proposing we rename this page to Camarasaurus lewisi; I would also be open to simply merging this page into Camarasaurus. Ornithopsis ( talk) 00:05, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
Oppose. We have to be careful here. When dinosaur genera are considered synonyms, this usually means their type species are deemed identical. This is not the case here. So, we have to ask ourselves: in what way is Cathetosaurus lewisi "invalid"? It is not nomenclaturally invalid, for it was validly named. Was it then empirically shown to be part of Camarasaurus? No, because the concept Camarasaurus has no published operational definition (yet), so it is in principle impossible to provide scientific proof for an assignment to Camarasaursus. What you refer to as a consensus, is nothing more than a bunch of paleontologists being intellectually lazy and either clinging, against their better judgement, to the protoscientific Linnaean system, or avoiding the tiresome work of splitting the genus. So, there is nothing "invalid" about the name Cathetosaurus. It's just a matter of choice, the lazy choice being for Camarasaurus lewisi and the competent choice being for Cathetosaurus. Of course, Wikipedia is not a biology textbook. The leeway allowed by WP:Common names had best been used to provide the reader with a title which is the least confusing and the most likely to be the term causing him to consult an encyclopedia.-- MWAK ( talk) 08:56, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
We have to be careful here. When dinosaur genera are considered synonyms, this usually means their type species are deemed identical.Tell that to Anatosaurus, Archaeornis, Elosaurus, Eobrontosaurus, Seismosaurus, and Morosaurus.
in what way is Cathetosaurus lewisi "invalid"? It is not nomenclaturally invalid, for it was validly named.You're completely right, C. lewisi is a valid species. It is currently assigned to Camarasaurus, in the combination Camarasaurus lewisi.
No, because the concept Camarasaurus has no published operational definition (yet), so it is in principle impossible to provide scientific proof for an assignment to Camarasaursus. What you refer to as a consensus, is nothing more than a bunch of paleontologists being intellectually lazy and either clinging, against their better judgement, to the protoscientific Linnaean system, or avoiding the tiresome work of splitting the genus.The fact that you don't like the fact that this species is consistently called Camarasaurus lewisi in the published literature, and have philosophical criticisms of the decision to do so, does not give us the right to do otherwise. Remember, we can't use original research here, and I think your opinion that the consensus of the peer-reviwed literature is wrong counts as such. Besides, there exists an unpublished taxonomic revision of Camarasaurus ( this poster) that concludes that C. lewisi belongs to Camarasaurus, so no, the inclusion of C. lewisi in Camarasaurus is probably not mere laziness.
The leeway allowed by WP:Common names had best been used to provide the reader with a title which is the least confusing and the most likely to be the term causing him to consult an encyclopedia.WP:COMMONNAMES hardly gives us the right to present as correct a different scientific name for a taxon than the one used in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. Also, Camarasaurus lewisi gets 103 results on Google Scholar, whereas Cathetosaurus lewisi gets only 22, most of which are not peer-reviewed papers. As such, it is Camarasaurus lewisi that is in fact the common name. Do you really think that using a less-common, incorrect name would be less confusing?
I think I've read multiple places that Camarasaurus is considered overlumped...Vague grumblings by splitters that they think Camarasaurus is overlumped because it has more than one species in it are not our concern until there's actually a peer-reviewed study proposing an alternative taxonomy. Our duty here is not to predict hypothetical future taxonomic revisions (see: WP:CRYSTAL), it is to present the consensus of the scientific literature. That consensus is very clearly in favor of calling the species in question Camarasaurus lewisi. Even if Camarasaurus were to be shown to be overlumped, there is no guarantee that the genus Cathetosaurus in particular would become viewed as valid again. Ornithopsis ( talk) 23:04, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
Any source using the name Camarasaurus lewisi is not a reliable source as to a scientific consensus, as such a consensus would by its nature be unscientific.Your reasoning is tautological: you have seemingly decided that the name Camarasaurus lewisi is, a priori, incorrect, and therefore that any evidence I provide supporting the use of the name is inadmissable.
Should we want to use Google as an argument, the more fair comparison would be between "Camarasaurus lewisi" for which I get 2070 hits, and "Cathetosaurus", 258 000 hits. In limiting ourselves to Google Scholar, we forget the typical reader will not be a scholar.Apples to oranges. A two-word exact phrase is naturally going to be less common than a single word. A statement like "Cathetosaurus is a junior synonym of Camarasaurus" or "Camarasaurus contains four species: C. grandis, C. lentus, C. lewisi, and C. supremus" would support use of "Camarasaurus lewisi" without necessarily using the exact term. I can aver that the majority of results turned up by my Google Scholar search do indeed support using "Camarasaurus lewisi".
It is just a prevalent contingent convention within a very small circle of persons.That "very small circle of persons" you refer to is also known as "almost every expert in the relevant field." The very notion of taxonomic nomenclature itself is a "prevalent contingent convention"—it is not some platonic entity that exists independently of the terms scientists actually use!
But by asking for reliable sources at this point, you are committing a category mistake: we need reliable sources for the text, not for our judgment whether sources are reliable.Nearly all reliable sources to discuss C. lewisi use Camarasaurus lewisi, not Cathetosaurus lewisi, as the correct name for the taxon. You are the one who has made the claim that those sources are not reliable; it is on you to provide evidence for that claim.
You could make a much more cogent argument.So could you—your arguments are both fallacious and in violation of Wikipedia policy.
An unpublished abstract by Tschopp apparently puts Cathetosaurus as a seperate species from Camarasaurus, so I think the seperation has some validity to it.As I have already said more than once, a poster that appears to correspond to the same study concludes that Cathetosaurus is invalid, and moreover, a more recent paper by Tschopp and colleagues has assigned SMA 0002 and C. lewisi to Camarasaurus. As such, it appears that Tschopp has changed his mind since writing the abstract—and regardless, a single non-peer-reviewed abstract of an unpublished study cannot overturn the consensus of the published literature, which is that Camarasaurus lewisi is the name that should be used.
Each instance of Cathetosaurus is a reliable source as to the occurrence of this instance, no matter how unreliable that source might otherwise be in its content.That is not a reasonable interpretation of WP:COMMONNAME or WP:RELIABLE.
Am I committing a forbidden synthesis by bringing this up?Yes, you are. You are making a novel intepretation of the sources to come to a conclusion not present in any of them, namely "Cathetosaurus is valid because McIntosh et al. did not adequately justify their synonymization of it with Camarasaurus." In any case, we clearly have irreconcilable differences about how to interpret Wikipedia policy, and whether the consensus of experts in a given field is relevant, so I'm not sure if continuing this discussion without input from other editors is productive. Maybe FunkMonk, Hemiauchenia, Lythronaxargestes, or IJReid might have something to say? Ornithopsis ( talk) 17:23, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
Cathetosaurus lewisi was lumped into Camarasaurus, with the osteology of the specimen in 1996. Since then, papers and books (eg The Dinosauria 2004; Mannion ea 2013; Upchurch ea 2021) retained the genera as synonyms without comment, until the conference abstract of Mateus and Tschopp in 2013. The Sauropod Facts and Figures book (Molina & Larramendi 2020) follows the Catheto split. That about sums up the entire literature on Cathetosaurus, so I can't conclude that there is really any consensus. A book on either side, two recent papers lumping without comment, and one conference abstract splitting as the result of a detailed analysis (embargoed information that shouldn't be revealed notwithstanding). I don't think there's compelling evidence to either retain or rename the article, so I would advocate to leave it as it is. IJReid {{ T - C - D - R}} 18:21, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
An unpublished study suggested splitting the two genera again, based on the recognition of a second specimen, but subsequent research by one of the authors of that study has since concluded this specimen belonged to Camarasaurus after all. Subsequent research has referred to C. lewisi as a species of Camarasaurus, including research by one of the authors of the unpublished study.The first sentence is a reference to Tschopp et al. 2014/2016 (online-first/final date), which states:
[SMA 0002] It was identified as Cathetosaurus, based on the morphology of the pelvic girdle and dorsal transverse processes (Mateus and Tschopp 2013), but a more recent preliminary specimen-based phylogenetic analysis favors an identification as Camarasaurus (ET, unpublished data).As such, the claim made in the first sentence is fully supported by the source provided, with Tschopp explicitly stating that the results of his research have changed since the 2013 abstract. So you're right, it isn't "strongly suggested" that the results have significantly changed, it's explicitly stated. There are at least three papers by Tschopp that regard C. lewisi as belonging to Camarasaurus: Tschopp et al. 2015A:
Hundreds of bones of the four established species C. supremus Cope, 1877 (the type species), C. grandis (Marsh, 1877), C. lentus (Marsh, 1889), and C. lewisi (Jensen, 1988) were collected in the North American, Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation, covering a large part of its spatial and temporal range.Tschopp et al. 2015B:
...Camarasaurus also appears to show intrageneric variation: C. lewisi has narrow troughs throughout its bifurcated presacral vertebrae, whereas other Camarasaurus species have wide bases.and Tschopp and Upchurch 2018, which includes BYU 9047 in a table of Camarasaurus specimens. Perhaps all of those are incidental mentions, but they hardly suggest Tschopp is committed to the notion of Cathetosaurus validity. As such, the second sentence you removed is also supported by multiple sources. I don't appreciate your putting words in my mouth or falsely accusing me of making OR, unsourced statements. Ornithopsis ( talk) 02:30, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
Support. I cannot understand where MWAK is coming from. Wikipedia is not beholden to the gold standard of taxonomy, it is beholden to the actual usage in the literature. See also the variety of terrible or malformed published names that are necessarily transcribed verbatim onto Wikipedia. If a majority of recently published papers use Camarasaurus lewisi, the article is titled Camarasaurus lewisi. It really is that simple. Lythronaxargestes ( talk | contribs) 18:10, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
Oppose I think keeping Cathetosaurus seperate would be the best course of action to take, at least until a clear consensus on the genus' validity can be achieved. -- TimTheDragonRider ( talk) 17:26, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
Besides, if the article is going to be moved, shouldn't it be merged into Camarasaurus itself? -- TimTheDragonRider ( talk) 17:37, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
It was identified as Cathetosaurus, based on the morphology of the pelvic girdle and dorsal transverse processes (Mateus and Tschopp 2013), but a more recent preliminary specimen-based phylogenetic analysis favors an identification as Camarasaurus (ET, unpublished data).nor assignment of SMA 0002 to Camarasauridae serves as unequivocal support of Cathetosaurus validity; one could say ""Jane" was identified as Nanotyrannus, but more recent research favors an identification as Tyrannosaurus" without necessarily implying Nanotyrannus is valid, for instance. Could you link to the SVPOW post that says Cathetosaurus is valid? I agree that SVPOW is a reliable enough source to merit mention in the article (I'd weigh its reliability as on par with a conference abstract but below a peer-reviewed paper, based on my reading of WP:RELIABLE), although it won't sway me that Camarasaurus lewisi is the preferable name for this article, because there has never been a peer-reviewed counterargument to McIntosh et al. 1996's synonymization. Your argument that Cathetosaurus is a more flexible article title for use on Wikipedia is a fair point, but I don't think it's enough to overcome the fact that Cathetosaurus is generally regarded as invalid. Redirects exist, after all, so we have that flexibility regardless. Moreover, I think that Cathetosaurus should not be included in a template without at least some indication that its validity is questionable. Despite our disagreements, though, I do want to thank you for responding to my request for comment on the issue, and I think we have made progress on at least improving the article, if not coming to an agreement on the title. Ornithopsis ( talk) 19:34, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
Support. Per the detailed survey by Ornithopsis above, it seems pretty clear that Camarasaurus lewisi is the most widely used name for this taxon in relevant primary literature. Albertonykus ( talk) 15:02, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
Weak Support - I was initially swayed towards oppose by IJReid's point about whether the continuing Camarasaurus lewisi uses are significant or not, but Ornithopsis' above explanation seems to pretty clearly demonstrate that even restricting things to studies that meaningfully weigh in on taxonomy does not settle things in favor of a distinct genus - which, as the newer alternative proposal, has the burden on proof on it. That said, things very much could go either way so I'm not of an especially strong mind towards one name or the other. LittleLazyLass ( Talk | Contributions) 16:29, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
Weak Support - Ignoring the unstable status of Cathetosaurus "behind the scenes" and going only by recorded usage, it seems evident to me that the consistent incidental use of C. lewisi as a species of Camarasaurus is indicative of it being the accepted taxonomy following McIntosh 1996 up until 2013-14, thereby setting precedent for its usage. From 2014 onwards following the two Tschopp et al. abstracts, outside of papers explicitly acknowledging the suggested split, the fact that authors have continued to refer to C. lewisi as a species of Camarasaurus in incidental usage, rather than adopting Cathetosaurus, leads me to support renaming the article to Camarasaurus lewisi (or to merge it with Camarasaurus, if that is preferred). In my opinion, I believe that using Cathetosaurus as the title gives undue weight to the suggestion that it constitutes a distinct genus, as it has not yet been adopted as the name in prevalent usage over the continued use of Camarasaurus lewisi, regardless of whether either option is likely to be substantiated.
That being said, I do not have a strong opinion on this, and I can very much see the utility of the visibility of the genus-level title outside of the article itself, hence the choice of weak support. I would certainly not pursue the issue if the final decision ultimately was to keep the genus-level title, and I find the current state of the text satisfactory for highlighting the potential generic synonymy. Nonetheless, I emphasise that I ultimately agree with the logic for using Camarasaurus lewisi as the article title and consider it to be the more appropriate option. DrawingDinosaurs ( talk | contribs) 19:49, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
Weak Oppose for now Despite the fact that Camarasaurus lewisi seems to be ever so slightly more common in the general public, and very common in scientific literature, there is still no exact scientific consensus. As for now, with the article adequately addressing this issue, I think that keeping the two articles separate is our best currently available option. I personally believe that the articles can and probably will be merged at some point in the future, but it is just too soon to tell at this point. Logosvenator wikiensis ( talk) 16:19, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
@ Ornithopsis:, in your most recent article you've decided to start the article with the name Camarasaurus lewisi. However, as the article's name is still Cathetosaurus, would it not make more sense to keep Cathetosaurus as the first mentioned name? (I made this post instead of simply reverting your edit, no reason we can't discuss it right?) -- TimTheDragonRider ( talk) 11:35, 4 February 2022 (UTC)