PhyloCode again (was *Eudibamus*)

["Ken Kinman" <kinman@hotmail.com>]

David,
    Unfortunately the term Reptilia can't be "ignored" either.  In fact, 
upon putting mesosaurs back in with anapsids, Laurin and Gauthier have 
decided to use Reptilia rather than Sauropsida in the Arizona "Tree of 
Life".  From this I would guess that Gauthier might want Reptilia to replace 
Sauria, if and when turtles are transferred to Lepidosauromorpha or 
Archosauromorpha.  Then I suppose Sauropsida will pop back up----this all 
vividly illustrates the inadvisability of sacrificing stability of content 
in favor of stability of cladistic definitions.  But perhaps we can at least 
hope that Gauthier will drop Reptilia altogether, and this kidnapped term 
will be returned to us non-cladists (although in poor shape having been so 
taxonomically abused during its cladistic captivity).
    In any case, most of this will be ignored by professional eclecticist 
taxonomists and most of the public, and Reptilia will continue to be used in 
the traditional sense (which has remained relatively stable and popular in 
spite of the cladistic redefinition and the continuing shifts in content).  
Of course, this could have been avoided if cladists left names like Reptilia 
and Amphibia alone, and created new names for their unstable shifting taxa.
    Having commandeered our names and destabilized them, strict cladists 
will ultimately have to face the criticism and cladistic backlash that is 
slowly building in intensity.  I just hope the backlash doesn't spill over 
onto cladistic "analysis", which will have great potential when it finally 
becomes a mature discipline----presently it is more like a head-strong 
teenager who thinks he has all the answers and has disrupted the rest of the 
family in the process.
    That is why I agree with Michael Benton that the PhyloCode will be a 
taxonomic disaster, making things worse rather than better (for all 
taxonomists).  Some of us had a discussion on TAXACOM with Cantino, and 
there was some agreement on at least one problem with PhyloCode, but I 
wonder if he will be successful even on that change since moderate cladists 
seem to be outnumbered and outvoted by more aggressive cladists.
    In any case, I do look forward to reading Cantino's published response 
to Benton's paper in Biological Reviews.  But as I told Cantino in our 
discussions, I do not share his optimism in how the PhyloCode will be 
implemented by the more aggressive cladists.  I wouldn't worry if I thought 
it would remain as cladists squabbling among themselves, but it will no 
doubt spill over and involve us all.  Thank you Mike Benton for at least 
trying to head off this disaster.
                     -----Ken Kinman
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"David Marjanovic" wrote:
> That was what I tried to imply :-] when I wrote "ignored", not "abandoned" 
> or "dropped". As the content is at present the same, no one forces us to 
> use Reptilia when we are speaking of the content, what we do most of the 
> time.
>     What's the matter with the hips of *Eudibamus*?
>     Whatever, if turtles are archosauromorphs, then the term Reptilia will 
> become quite useless, I think.
>     BTW, definitions can still change (shouldn't in most cases, okay) 
> before PhyloCode is official.
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