RE: bats & battalions (was Benton and Kinman)

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

Tracy Ford (dino.hunter@home.com) wrote:

<Or, the building was built with sturdy structures, but looks old and run down, 
but still stands
tall. The new architect don't like the look of the building and say 'hey its 
ugly and we need to
tare it down and build a new building, don't anyone use the old building, we 
have a better one'.
See, using metaphors works both ways.>

  This is Kinman's "eclectic" approach, at least in theory. The analogy is 
sound, mostly. However,
any primitive infrastructure, no matter how modern it's ultrastructure, will 
suffer from time, and
still degrade. This is why modern improvements in architecture can only go so 
far, before the
restructuralizing architects apply the big ball. A modern exterier on a 
primitive infrastructure
will collapse given the erosion and degradation. All primitive parts must be 
weeded out to provide
stability and safety, or just start over. Nonetheless, the structure must still 
be built up and
repaired. Architects often simply start over.

<I say, let him LIVE!!! Use his works, change them if need be, but don't let 
him die because the
'new architects' think his was are old and out dated. Look at the Roman 
architecture, look at the
'arch' (whoops, must have just seen the new VW commercial).>

  LOL

  Yes, I agree that Linné started a good thing, but his work is no longer 
pertinent. There are
sound principles, and the practice has paved the way for modern studies. But 
this does not mean
that ranks and the like should be retained. Traditional structure for 
tradition's sake? No
argument for ranks has validly qualified it's case, or even beaten the 
counterarguments. This is
science, but retention of ranks does not appear to be through scientific 
principles. They mean
nothing. They have no valid structure or definition.

<Basically, either way you look at it, either Linnaean or Cladistics. They 
still use a
hierarchy;...>

  True.

<...have an ancestor and descendant,...>

  Not used or recognized by Linnaean classification. Remember, they are 
arranged by rank
hierarchy, not evolutionary nesting. The class above the order, not the more 
inclusive taxon
around the less inclusive taxon. A rank does not equal a taxon.

<...just because the author of the works didn't believe in evolution,>

  You use ranks. Do you beleive in evolution? I know that Linné did not. It 
hadn't even been
established in a quantified form until Wallace and Darwin.

<...doesn't mean that his work doesn't work.>

  I would think that evolution is implicit in the paradigm used for 
classification, or should be
used as a defining criterion. How else does one forma classification? Evolution 
is implicit in any
means of formulating one.

<There is a lot of egotism  (in both camps) that needs to be let go and meld 
the two systems into
one.>

  I hope I'm not implying egotism when I say that a marging of both sides won't 
work. There are
several features required in a most parsimonious analysis:

  1) lack of "feel good" placements.
  2) features are acquired, thus an ansector-descent relationship is implicit.
  3) analysis without arbitrary arrangements.
  4) use of the scientific method, testing.
  5) relationship requires equal weight for all organisms.

  Diversity schmiversity, ditto geography. That works only descent, and has no 
role in the
speciation of the root forms, so has no effect on the relationship of 
organisms. Use of this
(geography) is good for identifying populations, and isolated geography may 
force speciation to
occur, but geography alone and generally does not cause or is implicit in 
speciation, so it is a
part-time factor, not key.


=====
Jaime A. Headden

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

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