Re: [dinosaur] Party like it's 1758!

[Paul P <turtlecroc@yahoo.com>]

Sure, but I can't really get into it right now. It's been one of those days (am 
just now checking email at 10 PM!) 

Phylogenetic nomenclature has its own set of problems. For example, things like 
"the clade originating in the most recent common ancestor of A and B" becomes a 
mess if A or B turns out not to belong to that clade. And the termite example 
given in the press release in support of the Phylocode is silly--termites could 
simply have been demoted to suborder or infraorder instead of family. In fact, 
I think they were. Nothing else has to change. The main issue with Linnaeus is 
that ranks are arbitrary and/or non-equivalent. 

But I haven't really studied the Phylocode yet. Maybe nothing actually changes. 
Many groups are already defined phylogenetically.


On Friday, June 12, 2020, 01:25:13 PM UTC, David Marjanovic 
<david.marjanovic@gmx.at> wrote:

> The old adage comes to mind: "If it ain't broke, don't try to fix it."

Is that intended as an argument against regulated phylogenetic nomenclature?

Because... yes, the current state of affairs is very visibly broken, and we've 
been discussing this for 25 years.