WAGNERS'S WISE (??) WORDS

["Darren Naish" <dwn194@soton.ac.uk>]

Jon Wagner insisted that I fwd this pile, err, message to the list, as he's
currently unable to do so (he's in a state of turmoil, or state of emotional
upheavel, or state of distress - to be honest, I'm not certain: all I know is
he's in another state). Sorry everyone;-)

Jon's new comments are those that lack the '>', starting here..

         Darren,
         I am rather hurt tht you didn't cc your message about priority to
me. I am no longer on the list due to having to be in another state for a
while, and I only heard about it through a friend. Please feel free to reply
to this message to the list, but do cc me so I will eventually read your
replies.
 
------>Would you please forward this message to the list as your pennance
for hurting my feelings? :)
 
        Thanks, and talk to you soon. - Wagner
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Reply to wagner@ttu.edu
 
> >Wagner and I have been having an all-out email war over use of the terms Aves
> >and Avialae.
         Is it an "all-out war" if we only exchange one message apiece? I'd
expect that, if it were a war, you'd have emailed this message to me.
        :) just sulking...
 
> >He says Avialae should be used because of priority, but I said that
> priority >rules don't go for higher taxa, PLUS 'Aves' is just a tad older
> than 'Avialae' >(like, more than 230 years older..). But _he_ says that,
> under the new 
         Actually, Aves is still a valid taxon in PT, but it is the crown
group taxon, as I pointed out in my one (1) response to you in this heated
"war". :)
        In this case priority simply supresses the second definition of Aves
(as either = { + Neortnithes, - Dromaeosauridae } or = { + Neornithes, +
_Archaeopteryx} ) in favor of the first ( crown group birds ).

> >clad-rules, priority goes for whichever term was first published in a
> >phylogenetic context (i.e. defined in a cladistic framework) _and_ these
> >priority rules apply to all taxon names. 
        Since higher taxa in PT are explicitly defined, without priority the
taxa could proliferate and add even more confusion to the current state of
affairs (e.g. the current discussion).
 
> >So, what gives? I thought that workers chose whatever higher taxa they wanted
> >depending on the names they most want to express (certainly the case judging
> >from Sereno _et al_'s theropod trees!).
        IMHO, that's a cruddy way to do taxonomy.
 
> >I know this doesn't go for family and
> >subfamily rank names, and I recall the dispute over choice of names
Segnosauria
> >vs. Therizinosauroidea.
        That was a goofy dispute, really. My fault. Therizinosauroidea has
been explicitly defined (at least to my mind), Segnosauria has not. That
doesn't mean that one *has* to take priority over the other, just that I'd
prefer to use a defined one to an undefined one (does Segnosauria include
_Microvenator_? How do you know without a definition). If Therizinosauroidea
didn't exist, I'd use Segnosauria until something was defined to mean the
same thing. It is simply a matter of using Phylogenetically defined taxa
whenever possible.
 
> >So, have Hennigian rules stabilised priority rules with regard to higher
taxon
> >names?
        Hennig didn't write the rules for PT, although he set the stage very
nicely. Read Padian and May 1993 (in _The Non-Marine Triassic_ S.G. Lucas
and whomever, eds.) for a full explanation. The general idea is that the
taxon which has the earliest published explicit phylogenetic definition
(yeah, I have trouble with that too. Gauthier frequently makes "explicit"
definitions which don't "explicitly" name "anchor" taxa.) has priority.
 
> >If so, an end to speculation that Dinosauria might be re-named Hyposauria (an
> >Uncle Bob article in _Omni_ some years back):-)
        Will not happen in PT, or will be sunk, unless he defines it
differently and it does not describe the same ancestor.
 
John R. Hutchinson writes:
> >There does not need to be conflict between Aves and Avialae IMHO;
>         Check.
> >Chiappe and others have recently [...] explicitly defined Aves as the most
> >recent common ancestor of the Neornithes [...] and Archaeopteryx, and all
> >descendants of that MRCA.
        Which might or might not be synonymous with Avialae. The point
however being that Aves *has* been defined in PT, and it was defined as a
crown group, and if we are ever going to get anything done, we need to have
rules. We all hate 'em, but we gotta have 'em.
 
> >which is more stable and more faithful to the original spirit of Hennig
> than >apomorphy-based definitions, as I think most people now agree.
        Not to mention easier to define, easier to use, less complicated
philosophically and in practice, and less likely to be confused with
definitions in other taxonomic schemes.
 
> >The controversy over the use of Aves is quite similar to that surrounding
> >Mammalia (see recent papers by Rowe, Wible, Hopson, etc., etc.)
        See also Bryant [sic?] 1994 (ref'd in Holtz 1996) for an amusing
explanation and rebuttal of Lucas. Note however that what Bryant sees as an
improvement, using node based definitions for crown groups, is, IMHO, of
little added value and detracts from the power of the crown group.
Extinction criterion my dog's kidneys.
 
George writes:
> >These "new" clad-rules have not been ratified by any international body
> >recognized by or representing zoologists or biologists.
        Actually, despite your "", they are indeed new, being not older than
a decade. I should also point out that, as the only set of rules out there
for PT, and until official recognition, they should be accepted by workers
using PT until such time as someone bothers to a) ratify them, b) provide an
alternative in a peer-reviewed publication.
 
> >Formally, the ICZN does not rule on taxa above the family level
        As you have just pointed out in Phylogenetic Taxonomy (which is,
after all, what we are discussing), the ICZN does not rule.
 
> >_Turdus migratorius_
        It is time everyone agreed on a bird to represent all birds.
Personally, my vote is for _Passer_. I know Peter Buckholz likes _Corvus_,
no "real paleontologist" has ever mentioned a genus (I suppose they need to
decide this Aves thing amongst themselves first... :), and George here uses
_Turdus_ (nice one, but what the heck is it?).

[Editor's note.. Pete's surname is Buchholz, and _Turdus_ is the thrush genus
of the passerine family Turdidae (or subfamily Turdinae of Muscicapidae if you
are so inclined): Blackbirds (_T. merula_), American robins, Fieldfares,
Redwings, Ring ouzel, that sort of thing..] 

> >I'm rewriting MM #2 third edition to refer to existing phylogenetic
> >definitions of dinosaur taxa and to provide such definitions for taxa that
> >don't already have them, with due regard for nomenclatural priority, of
> >course.
        Oh dear lord. Please, George, before you do this, can we have a
little talk? If you're going to be publishing taxon definitions that someone
might have to accept, there are a few things I'd like to say.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
      Jonathan R. Wagner, Dept. of Geosciences, TTU, Lubbock TX 79409
                 "They Airbrushed My Face" - REM
 
 
"Kenneth, what's the frequency?"
The original Dan Rather version

DARREN NAISH