Re: Croc classification (was Re: Sarcosuchus and Dumbing things down)

["Demetrios M Vital" <vita0015@umn.edu>]

I accidentally sent this just to HP Salisbury, but it's for everyone...
Sorry for the double email, HP Salisbury.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Demetrios M Vital" <vita0015@umn.edu>
To: <steve_salisbury@BIGPOND.COM>
Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2001 8:00 PM
Subject: Re: Croc classification (was Re: Sarcosuchus and Dumbing things
down)


> From: "Steve Salisbury" <steve_salisbury@bigpond.com>
> > Taxonomic categories are one of the many possible sets of pragmatic
> classes
> > among which organisms, both fossil and extant, can be distributed.  The
> main
> > purpose of any classification is to aid the process of distinguishing
> > between perceived, systematic categorisations.
> >
> > At a primary level, phylogenetic presuppositions do not need to form
part
> of
> > the abstraction process associated with identifying taxonomic
categories.
>
> I am under the impression that taxonimists evaluate relationships between
> organisms ("orderly classification of plants and animals according to
their
> presumed natural relationships," according to Merriam-Webster).  The only
> form those "natural relationships" take is evolutionary.  There
> are no other "real" relationships between organisms besides
> who-evolved-from-who.  All other "relationships" are convergences.   Why
> organize organisms into categories that don't reflect nature?  It's false.
>
> The idea that a biomechanist would find it easier to name an unnatural
group
> "Bipedalia" as opposed to simply calling all these things "bipeds," which
> they are, seems unreal to me.  Why establish relationships between in a
> group, in
> this case Bipedalia, that don't exist?  Why not just deal with things as
> they are?
>
> And they are a result of evolutionary relationships.  So let's reflect
those
> lineages.
>
> -Demetrios Vital
>