PhyloCode's Opening Day

[Ken Kinman]

     I suspect the first day PhyloCode opens for business, there is going to
be a mad rush to get PhyloCode priority established for workers' favorite
taxon names.  Not just cladists trying to get their clade definitions
priority (and their names attached to them for posterity), but also
botanists and zoologists competing so their favorite generic homonym will
win out (Lactarius vs. Lactarius; Prunella vs. Prunella; Archaea vs.
Archaea; large numbers of these have been discussed on this list before).
     The PhyloCode Committee is going to be swamped in my opinion, therefore
very slow to move, and their decisions will probably be very controversial
and result in a lot of angry people.
     There is already friction and confusion just on the differing clade
definitions for theropod dinosaur clades (e.g., Sereno vs. Gauthier).  And I
don't want to even think about the complications that will be caused when
node-based names compete with stem-based names that end up including the
same taxa.  It won't be just cladist vs. eclecticists---the cladists will be
bickering among themselves as well (it's already started).
     And as I have explained in other posts, I think it is unnecessary and
unwise.  Once Mike Benton's criticisms are published and widely discussed,
hopefully the PhyloCode will be heavily revised (if not abandoned in favor
of a less drastic approach).  A few new classificatory conventions, working
within the established codes, makes a lot more sense to me.
                    ------Ken Kinman
_________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at
http://profiles.msn.com.