rankless nomenclature

[Zdenek Skala]

In response to Philip Cantino I will try to summarize - and
apologies in advance if I oversimplify his views:
Philip Cantino wrote (extracted from his two postings):
....
> I would like to name clades and
>species, and these are the things that the PhyloCode is (or will
>be, in the case of species) designed to name.
....
>I agree that a nomenclatural code should not decide which things
>to name, but a code may be established explicitly to name
>certain kinds of things that people want to name.  This is the
>case with the PhyloCode.
....
>It [PhyloCode] decouples clade (and eventually species) names
>from classification (ranking) to a greater extent than traditional
>biological nomenclature does.
This is not exactly what I had in mind. My idea (probably naive)
was that nomenclature should (and can) be *generally*
independent on the classification, i.e. not even on the particular
solution but also on the "philosophy" be it cladistic, phenetic or
any other. My second idea (very probably naive) was that traditional
Linnean-type nomenclature can serve these purpose - after some
further improvement. My third idea (surely naive) was that
taxonomic community could agree on some such solution to
support nomenclature stability ("ideas change, names are the
same"). There exists some worry that PhyloCode finally
outcompetes the existing Codes. Being not very enthusiastic about
it I could live with PhyloCode. The other opportunity - long-lasting
co-existence of different Codes - seems to me more probable and
more dangerous at the same time.
I am sure that PhyloCode would serve very well to cladistic
community. On the other hand, separate Codes could be useful to
other communities, too. Would not it be nice for geneticist or
breeders to name organisms by their genotype and so relax the
nested pattern of nomenclature? In that way, taxon "tortuosa"
could be included in many higher-rank taxa since the genetic basis
of tortuose (plant) growth would be identical. Such change fully
reflects the natural pattern of genome structure and have both
theoretical and practical advantages. Of course - it would promote
further instability of nomenclature. Perhaps I am too conservative,
but feel that names serve not only to scientific community but also
to many institutions as well as to general public; hence there exist
also important "political" consequences of such decision.
Respectfully, I would like to raise the question if the advantages of
having separate Code (against the existing ones) is really so
indisputable. Can someone involved in the PhyloCode development
summarize?
Thanking in advance
sincerely
Zdenek

++++++++++++++++++++++
] Zdenek Skala
] e-mail:
] skala at incoma.cz