Re: Science is CHANGING

["Jaime A. Headden" <qilongia@yahoo.com>]

I call all this a matter of what format of language one wants to use and 
assumes the other person
operating at is using. Okay, understandably, a lay person will need a lay 
answer. But let me try
to elaborate...

  Ken Kinman offers that his system adequately exemplifies the answer to the 
question Snowflake
asked. His formulation, when rendered, is a visual format with a verbal 
accompaniment. To
understand the format, one needs a verbal explanation. That which Mike Keesey 
offered is a pure
verbal format, which accompanies a separate, yet entirely independant diagram. 
One needs only the
diagram to demonstrate relationship. This was offered by David Marjanovic. 
Which one best
exemplifies the format for understanding? Goo goo language so that _everyone_ 
can understand,
specialist language so that specific statements don't require paragraphs of 
language to make
clear?or diagrammatic language (images) so that a statement is apparent without 
verbalization at
all? One can formulate in either way, verbal or graphic, and there are more 
than one way to do
either. The simplest has always been to offer a tree diagram (essentially a 
cladogram: from Latin
cladis "a branch" + Latin gramma "a written thing" = to write out a branching 
thing, or tree...
another word used for this, is dendrogram. This is the earlier word, and means 
"to write a tree")
and this was used for centuries, long before Hennig and the advent of 
cladistics.

  Formatting for language requires that one be specific, as well as clear. 
Unless I had a
statement accompanying a chemical formula, stating the meaning of the letters 
(what "0" means)
then I would have no idea that CO2 referred to an actual chemical compound 
called carbon dioxide.
We require knowledge for this. There is a diagrammatic way of representing 
phylogeny that does not
require 1) an accompanying verbal explanation, or 2) a college-level education.

  Saying:

  --Eusauropoda
     |--Diplodocoidea
     `--Macronaria
         `--Camarasauromorpha
             |--Camarasaurus et al.
             `--Titanosauriformes
                 |--Brachiosauridae
                 `--Titanosauria

  ... is quite descriptive. What does anyone not derive in accordance to 
phylogeny from this?


=====
Jaime A. Headden

  Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhr-gen-ti-na
  Where the Wind Comes Sweeping Down the Pampas!!!!

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