Communication (was Ranks)

[P. F. Stevens]

>> I am reminded of Parky Sharkey's
>> definition of the family:
>>
>> "A family is a group including one or more genera (and
>> itself included within a higher-ranked taxon) of a
>> size and inclusiveness determined by common usage and
>> mutual (although not necessarily explicit) agreement
>> among taxonomists more or less familiar with the
>> organisms involved."  Sharkey, P.  Unpubl.
>> Deconstructing Systematics.
>>
>> Anyone have a better definition?
>
>Not me - that pretty-well matches the definition that I use, and the one
>Darwin hinted at, which in its distilled, generalized form is:
>
>"A [insert any taxon rank here] is what a taxonomist (or community of
>taxonomists) says it is."
>
>I believe that this is what the definition of Linnaean classification ranks
>always has been, and will always remain. Such is the nature of "rankful"
>classification.
>
Having been away for a few days, and with a lecture to write, and so not
much time, there is nevertheless perhaps a bit of confusion here worth
mentioning.  This quote as much refers to communication as grouping, as did
arguments over species/genus/family circumscriptions in Darwin's time.
Assuming a phylocode with names at all nodes of a resolved tree of life, or
even a much less resolved tree, more or less as at present, I presume
textbooks will focus on particular nodes, and different textbooks will end
up focussing on very largely the same nodes, or a subset of them (not that
all general books will be identical in this respect).  Otherwise I might
well prefer Babel after the event.

There is this small issue of quotidian communication that seems sometimes
to be forgotton.  Such communication generally involves conventions: in
this case, what chunks of nature we are going to focus on in everyday talk.
This is an issue in all complex systems of naming.  From this point of view
a phylocode name would end up with an equally ridiculous definition.

Peter S.