Re: The PhyloCode will not address the naming of species (Was The Papers That Ate Cincinnati)

[David Marjanovic <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

Last post on this topic before I move to the PhyloCode forum (traffic is so 
heavy that my last e-mail arrived 12 h late):

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Anthony Docimo" <keenir@hotmail.com>
To: <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Cc: <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2007 1:36 AM

> if I may ask, when did you say *Cycliophora* is not a new phylum?

Nothing stops us from lumping it with its closest relatives (...whatever 
they are).

Better example: Is there one phylum Cephalorhyncha, or are there three 
(Kinorhyncha, Loricifera, Priapulida) which just happen to be each other's 
closest relatives? There is no way to tell.

> and *this* is a _bad_ thing?
>
> how many times has that sort of thing been done with dinosaurs and other 
> fossils?
>
> lots of times, I'm sure.

Yes, and that's a very bad thing, because it was a complete waste of time 
and paper. Read such articles: "the group is so diverse that I feel a higher 
rank would more adequately capture its size", "the group is so unique that 
it deserves higher rank", "sure it's unique, but it's still so similar to 
the closest relative that it deserves a somewhat lower rank than what my 
colleage suggested"... endless bickering about purely subjective matters.

And then people come and try to assess the change of biodiversity through 
time by counting orders, families, or genera. Again and again and again. 
Even when those same people say in different publications that ranks are 
subjective. It is not possible to count orders or families or genera because 
their numbers vary between classifications -- there is no true number we can 
discover, we can only arbitrarily agree on one or not.

> by that logic, redwoods and poison ivy  are nothing more than part of a
> clade within the bacteria kingdom.  "Plants" are an illusion.

"Plants" are not an illusion. "Kingdom" is an illusion. That's the whole 
point.

> (after all, there's no clear-cut edge to the Plant Kingdom, with with the
> protists that have plant features...and protists are an offshoot of
> bacteria, therefore...)

That's not how Plantae would be defined, see. It would get a phylogenetic 
definition. Phylogenetic definitions have clear-cut edges.

Actually... you surprise me. On the Spec mailing list you are exceedingly 
timid. And here, suddenly, you act as if you had understood Linnaean and 
phylogenetic nomenclature, when it's clear from your comments that you 
haven't understood even just the basics of either. ~:-|