Ernst Mayr and "Life"

[Curtis Clark]

At 10:05 PM 9/13/99 -0700, Ken Kinman wrote:
> I think there have been several versions, from about 7 to 9
>kingdoms (the majority being among the protists).

QED

>   Four Kingdoms are stable, easy to teach and learn, and Phylum Eumycota
>falls totally within Kingdom Protista , whether or not you include
chytrids
>within it or as an external ancestral group (take your pick).  I have no
>major problems with recognizing a fifth kingdom, but for heaven's sake,
>call
>it Eumyota, not Fungi (since the latter is quite polyphyletic).

Did no one ever teach you about emendation?

>It may seem a bit mean-spirited to keep criticizing his paradigm,

Not only that, but it reduces the force of your arguments, because people
start to see you as a crackpot.

>in this forum, Mayr and Woese themselves agreed on one thing---that the
>results of their debate would have profound implications for the future of
>all science (and biology affects all the sciences, in one way or another).

What if both are wrong in that regard?


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