RE: Philidor: No Class

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

--- philidor11@snet.net wrote:

<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.>

John Conway (john_conway@mac.com) wrote:

<Stable?! That stretches credulity. The whole reptile/dinosaur/bird MESS 
is entirely linnaean. Phylogenetically it is much more stable.>

  Let me describe a parable.

  Built a latticework, and set it down. On the bottom of the lattice work,
set a melon. Above it and in succession, you set smaller fruits and
veggies until a pea is at the top. The latticework sits in a field and is
perfectly sensible.

  It follows proper criteria: fruits and veggies, largest to smallest,
down to up. This is the Linnaean system, perfect in it's construction,
easily patterned because you can see it from horseback. Don't get off,
you'll see the flaws. Like actual organizational problems. Fruits and
veggies are ansiospermous, but they certainly are not grouped properly in
a hodge-podge. The problem is not the method in which the system is
organized, it's _how_ it's organized. Or should I say, the effects of
organization and the real meaning to which the organizing "rungs" pertain.
Rather effective they are, to. And I notice that in arguments for the
Linnaean system, this is the only thing that is perceived as advantageous:
stability; the plasticity of alternate systems is considered problematic
in that one does not have much of a pre-set framework upon which to put
smaller fruits and veggies; one wouldn't know how to put the orange next
to the pear. This is because of a systematic interpretation of
superiority, but this angle has been done to death.

  Arguements that the Linnaean system is adaptable are false. The system
is immutable: ranks exists despite their meaninglessness. It is easy to
set taxa within taxa, circles within circles, boxes inside other, larger,
yet essentially identical boxes. The real, and only real problem with the
Linnaean system, really, is this: taxa are arranged by value of difference
from other organisms, whereas other systems use similarity, and each
distinction from one another is defined by a _regulum_; a rank, or rung,
in the ladder of life. Each rank has it's value, somehow, because some
ranks define the existence of others. It has always been so: Kingdom,
Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species. We coin a binomial, and that
goes in a larger group, and hence larger. This is fundamental to all
workign taxonomies. Problematically, the Linnaean system does not divorce
the rank from the content. Somehow, the content is defined by the rank,
which is curious, because the rank is meaningless ... nothing defines a
rank, not even content. There are monotypic species, genera, families,
orders, and even classes and phyla. But there are polytypic ones... But no
taxon has more than one true rank, and in this way the system is
unbalanced and employs no true reality: take the pear and bring it near
the apple, bring the cherry down in parallel ... take the orange and
smaller peach-sized lemon, but the strawberry is next to the raspberry ...
every other criterion is abandoned to place them in genetic context, or
accepted phylogeny today. But the strawberry is given it's own trank
because there is no other fruit its size: this rank must then be equal to
its neighbors, for an order (Ordo) cannot logically contain a class
(Classis), for the order of ranks is one of the established fundamental
principles of Linné. If there is a Kingdom, there must be a Phylum within,
a Class, an Order, a Family, etc.. And it must end with a binomial pair:
Genus and Species. This is also flawed on an aside, as the typically first
defined taxon is a Genus, which is not the lowest standard rank, rather
than a Species.

  Linnaeists are quick to point out the flaws of phylogenetic taxonomy,
becuase they see the world as based on the axiom of "Jefferson on
Horseback;" it is essentially plastic, there is no order, taxa have no
meaning except to their content, and how can you determine where the taxon
goes if you do not know it's content? Essentially, this argument breaks
down because it's pointless: taxa do not define their content, like ranks
to lower ranks, but rather the other way around: taxa are defined _by_
their _content_. Place a taxon in relation to another, and refer to that.
One uses nomenclature. Broaden the scope. And continue on. The system
expands or contracts, nomenclature may be lost. Linnaean argument has it
that a Class must always be, and are effectively immutable. *Opisthocomus*
should have it's own order, even though it may be abberantly cuculiform.
Hoopoes and hornbills, upupiforms and coraciiforms or upupids and
coraciids within coraciiforms? Why not just *Upupa* and *Coracias*? Their
relation to one another is defined by a name, however "far apart" they may
be, or "close." Distance is pointless, it tells us nothing about
relationship, just mutation rates. A mouse may mutate faster than a rat,
but they are both muroids, one does not become a distinct superfamily,
muroids versus rattoids, because it's somehow special. "Special" doesn't
cut it because it's aesthetically undefinable. I am special compared to my
family. My family is to the neighbors. My lineage to yours.

<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.>

  Nothing makes a new kingdom special, it simply has a very ancient
divergence from other organisms. Or within them. Thus, Animalia has
nothing with Plantae, Bacteria... Together, Animalia and Plantae are
something more than Bacteria in that they are eukaryotic. But the
traditional system provides that a Kingdom made is a Kingdom come. I stand
here, thence should I stay. My sword and my shield defend me mine, thine
usurper thought and reigning harrying hoard.

  This is why a Class Aves defies natural divergence. It reflects not
genetics, morphology, just aesthetics. It is logical to provide a system
that reflects such. But to systematically reduce Aves to conform within
Reptilia, one must think of just clades, otherwise *Passer* will be less
than a breed of a subvariant of a variant of a subspecies. There is
another flaw to Linnaean taxonomy.

  Cheers,

=====
Jaime A. Headden

  Little steps are often the hardest to take.  We are too used to making leaps 
in the face of adversity, that a simple skip is so hard to do.  We should all 
learn to walk soft, walk small, see the world around us rather than zoom by it.

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