bats & battalions (was Benton and Kinman)

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

Ken Kinman (kinman@hotmail.com) wrote:

<Tim doesn't seem to get my military analogy, so I'll try to explain it a 
little more vividly. 
But first, we again see the old argument that if birds get their own Class, 
then bats should as
well.  For one thing, bats do not match birds in species diversity, or in 
geological range, and
certainly not in morphological diversity (bats cannot match bird diversity 
exemplied by forms as
diverse as hummingbirds, penguins, cranes, kiwis, and owls---not to mention all 
those extinct
toothed forms in the Mesozoic).>

 Irrelevant.  That's a matter of intra-bird systematics, not general 
bird-versus-them
partitioning.  There is more morphological space between bats and their closest 
archontan
eutherian relatives that exists nowhere else in mammals, and certainly more so 
than in birds.  We
have a distinctly regarded theropod animal (Microraptor) that has virtually no 
distinction from
Archaeopteryx, relative to the degree seen between troodontids and 
dromaeosaurids, and certainly
less than that seen between Dendrocopus and Opisthocomus.  Birds are no more 
special than
teleostean fish or caecilians.  

<Bats have been assigned their own Order, but not a separate Class.>

 As David Marjanovic said, there's more diversity in teleostean fish than there 
is in birds, more
in Insecta (a "class") than in both combined, times ten, etc..

<And this was certainly NOT my arbitrary idea---- it is part of a long 
tradition which continues
to this day because it works well (except for those of you who automatically 
reject all formal
paraphyletic groups).  Furthermore, it goes with the grain (not against the 
grain) of how the
human brain organizes and classifies information.>

 People are adaptable.  Besides, it's what seems easiest not what conveys the 
pertinent
information.  Since the pattern that Ken advocates (his) requires intuitive 
leaps, an invisible
"rank-o-meter", and infinite paraphyly without stability of definition or even 
the names, it is
actually more complex, yet still manages to convey less information without 
appendices than
"normal" trees using phylogenetic taxonomy.  Sorry, Ken.

<Which brings me back to the military analogy.  If our government was organized 
strictly
cladistically, the Air Force would still be one gigantic company (or platoon?) 
that was never
allowed to separate from the Army.  So the cladists would have had to invent 
new intermediate
ranks to divide the Air Force hierarchy:  gigaCorporal, magnaCorporal, 
superCorporal, Corporal, 
subCorporal, infraCorporal, subinfraCorporal, ad nauseum.>

 Actually a form of this exists, at least in some ranks, where they are 
divided.  Take first,
second, third classes for corporals, sergeants, and privates.  There are also 
senior and junior
grades, several levels of admirals and generals (I'm sure you've heard of 
brigadiers and four-star
generals).  You think the military hasn't oversplit the ranks for neccessity to 
reflect the
diversity of status found between them?  Think again.

<Then when the hierarchy is a confusing mess, the cladists will declare:  No 
More Ranks.  If you
want to know the organization and chain of command, you will just have to 
memorize it all or check
one of the many different command charts ("cladograms") to see how it all fits 
together.  And
splintered chains of command would become very very long, and the whole 
military would be in
chaos.>

  I?m glad the military has a system where the ranks are nested and not based 
on descent, because
that?s not an issue that has anything to do with the chain of command.  The 
military ranks are not
a good analogy at all, I feel.

<And all of this mess simply because strict cladists can't abide the thought of 
a paraphyletic
Army, from which the Air Force should have been removed due to its expansion in 
size and
diversity.>

  Wrong.  Paraphyly is allowed, and in fact assumed, by both paleontologists 
and neontologists. 
If Ken sees the issue there, I?m sorry:  it?s not.  It?s ranks that this is all 
based on, and the
use of such to validate the arrangement of taxa, which Ken ties to a refusal to 
accept paraphyly. 
If the arrangement of taxa into non-equal ranks, than there must be a method 
for determining a
higher rank than another, and therefore criteria for allocating taxa to these 
ranks.  It?s a feel
good system, and as such, cannot abide in science.  This is the issue, Ken.

<What if our whole federal government was organized in cladistically nested 
sets with chains of
command that just got longer and longer.  Think about it.>

  Same problem as the military. It won?t work because of the chain of command 
and the lack of an
ancestor?descendant relationship between departments.  There?s a department 
head who regulates
lower levels.  Imagine an organ system, endocrine, lymphatics, and a brain.  If 
this is how Ken
sees taxonomy and the arrangement of organisms, then one should look at getting 
corrective lenses.


=====
Jaime A. Headden

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

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