RE: Philidor: No Class

[philidor11@snet.net]

You expostulated:
<And, the Linnaean system overwhelmingly favors experts.  I could 
create my own classification using the Linnaean system, and few 
would take it seriously, me not being an expert.  But, if I formulated 
a new cladogram of, say, the Dinosauria, then I would be taken 
seriously, if and only if my analysis followed scientific principles. 
 If I took into account the necessary synapomorphies and invoked 
parsimony, as cladistic classification calls for, the simple 
facts (it is a fact if an organism shares a derived character) 
would speak for themselves.  Facts don't speak under the Linnaean 
system, only those on the taxonomic high horse do.>

That was the subject of an interesting dialogue with HP Holtz 
some time since.  He allowed that the cladogram of an expert 
was more substantial than a cladogram that I might produce, if 
only because he knew more.  (A fact I accept because it's true; 
no graciousness required for the admission.)  He lamented the 
lack of time which slowed his production of cladograms, one superceding 
another, publication on publication.
And, of course, his effort would claim greater attention from 
others in the field than my own.
By the way, cladistic analysis has used alternatives to parsimony 
without being less 'scientific'.  Any logical principle applied 
to data is potentially acceptable, so long as no observations 
are contradicted and the results are taken seriously.  Past evolution 
can be neither observed nor replicated, so the ultimate arbiter 
is unavailable.
On the other hand, the Linnaean system is so stable that your 
theorizing would be at the fringes.  Until a bird morphs into 
a snake the essential ground has been landscaped.  If you have 
difficulty with placing a long extinct animal which might be 
a bird or dino, there will be many erudite people to be persuaded. 
 Those uninterested need not be in suspense about whether their 
children have to learn new current majority opinion.

By the way, you can tell your brother that the new kingdom matches 
Leichtenstein or Monaco in size of population and influence. 
 Shame there are no Duchies in the plan of biology.  And you 
can add that at least he doesn't have to learn cladistics, where 
the text would hourly be replaced with new interpretations recorded 
on self-stick paper.
Another in the (what?) 10,000 generations of students of Linnaean 
classification.  




___________________________________________________________
Sent by ePrompter, the premier email notification software.
Free download at http://www.ePrompter.com.