PhyloCode (read Benton's new paper)

[Ken Kinman]

TAXACOMERS,
     I have long felt that the only way to save the Linnean System was to
make it just as useful to cladists as it is to eclecticists.  The only
logical way to do this is to limit the number of ranks, and informally code
the relationships between relatively stable "formal" taxa.  The Kinman
System only formally recognizes Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus
& Species, and whenever new information changes our understanding of a
group's phylogeny, the coding absorbs most of the changes.
      Instead of cooperating on creating such a cladisto-eclectic system,
both sides just continue to bicker.  As for the PhyloCode, I believe it will
ultimately fail, but not until after having littered the nomenclatural
landscape in a way that no previous generation of biologists could have
imagined.
     A prominent paleontologist, Michael Benton, says the PhyloCode is a
very, very bad idea.  His paper will appear in Biological Reviews in
November, but since it is now in press, he has already posted the article on
the Internet (on his homepage at the University of Bristol). Here's the URL:
    http://palaeo.gly.bris.ac.uk/phylocode/biolrev.html
I think it is very well written and insightful.
              -------Cheers, Ken Kinman

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