rankless nomenclature

Barry Roth barry_roth at YAHOO.COM
Mon Oct 16 08:30:23 CDT 2000


--- Zdenek Skala <Zdenek.Skala at INCOMA.CZ> wrote:

> Thus, again -
> phylogenetic systematics of any kind cannot be
> really complete in the strict sense, we never reach
> "90% confidence about phylogeny"; we will even never
> know which % of confidence is reached. This is
> intelectually inacceptable on the long run and, in
> my opinion, can lead to the search for the more
> testable taxonomic principles - some kind of "new
> phenetics".

And what, please, is it that we have confidence in
when using the Linnean system?  Surely not that it is
a representation of the underlying phylogeny.  Not
even that it documents a parsimonious estimate of that
phylogeny.  I think the most that can be said is that,
taken as a whole, canonical systematics documents a
history of choices, by numerous workers using numerous
(and often inexplicit) criteria for grouping taxa.  It
takes a great leap of faith to believe that such a
classification will be optimal for predicting the
distribution of previously undiscovered
character-states.

Barry Roth

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Messenger - Talk while you surf!  It's FREE.
http://im.yahoo.com/




More information about the Taxacom mailing list