hidden "cladistic" ranks

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

    Unfortunately, cladistic (phylogenetic) taxonomy has so many ranks (now 
undesignated, but still there) that they finally had to give up trying to 
name them all.   I think it is just semantic "smoke and mirrors" (or more 
likely, not really examining what they have been taught) to claim they have 
abandoned ranks.
    In essence, cladistic taxonomy has one large taxon (Biota, or as I call 
it "Geobiota"), plus many millions of species----and **everything** in 
between is an intermediate taxon.  Instead of eliminating formal 
intermediate taxa (as I have done), they are encouraging huge increases in 
the number of such formal taxa.
     Clearly strict cladism is going in the wrong direction, encouraging a 
wholesale increase in names, and at the same time eliminating the 
hierarchical signposts that have been long used in written and verbal 
communication between biologists.  It's a darn good way to get lost, and 
more and more people are finally recognizing this.
     Thank goodness for centrists like Peter Dodson, Michael Benton, and 
some people on this list as well.  One can enjoy the benefits of cladistic 
analysis without being a strict cladist when it comes to classification.
            ------Ken Kinman
********************************************
David Marjanovic wrote:
> I personally (like an increasing number of people that is apparently 
> particularly high onlist) don't recognize any ranks for largely the same 
> reason... :-)


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