Re: bats & battalions (+ pentastomids & marsupials)

["Tim Williams" <tijawi@hotmail.com>]

Ken Kinman wrote:

> And my new Class Scorpionea (uniting Scorpionida and the eurypterid orders) 
> was definitely not traditional---- and at the time, placing Order 
> Opabiniida in  Class
> Anomalocarea was still considered extremely speculative (it is now far more 
> acceptable and mainstream).
>     And the marsupials were brought up in another post, which do indeed
> display a diversity which should not be stuffed into a single Order
> Marsupialia (and I didn't!!!).

This isn't the point.  Your use of *ranks* is traditional - that was my 
contention.  Who gives an armadillo's testicle if Marsupialia is one "order" 
or nine "orders"?  Or if Scorpionea is a "class" or "order"?  It's where 
these clades fit in a phylogenetic framework that is important.

To use yet another analogy, think of a Roadmap.  Most people just want to 
know how all the roads in a city link up to one other.  They want to see the 
exact geographic position of every road so they can find their way around 
the city.  If they want to get from A to B (or C or D...) they can find a 
route.  That's why roads have names.

Ken, on the other hand, seems to want to examine each road one by one and 
declare "Well, this is a very busy road, so we'll call it an 'Avenue'.  The 
one next to it is smaller, so this road should be accorded the rank of 
'Street'.  But if this Street gets an increase in traffic, I'll promote it 
to an 'Avenue'..."

And the poor driver just wants to get from A to B...



Tim





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