It's a historical thing. Fish was considered separate from "flesh" (i.e. other meats) and was sometimes permitted during Lent. There are other similar distinctions. The distinction here is a social/cultural one. Our scientific minds cannot stand it when people carry forward these things into contemporary thought. There is a lot of this; we just don't realize it.
Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas. "Article 8. Whether it is fitting that those who fast should be bidden to abstain from flesh meat, eggs, and milk foods?"In the institution of fasting, the Church takes account of the more common occurrences. Now, generally speaking, eating flesh meat affords more pleasure than eating fish, although this is not always the case. Hence the Church forbade those who fast to eat flesh meat, rather than to eat fish.
I think fish is meat because it is the flesh of an animal.
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Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön
Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot
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