Fwd: PhyloCode names

[Thomas Lammers]

At 03:45 PM 10/23/00 -0700, Barry Roth wrote:
>In my view, the "phylo" spelling proposal seeks to impose a "second-class
>citizen" status on phylogenetically defined names,

That is not my intent.  I simply want to avoid confusion.  But to be
honest, PhyloCode names ARE second-class.  They are a new thing, trying to
horn in on and usurp a way of doing things that originated almost 250 yrs
ago.  I don't think it is too much to ask that PhyloCode names be
immediately obvious to anyone, to avoid confusion.  The methodology
codified by the ICBN has paid its dues, it deserves to stand as THE way of
doing things.

When an International Botanical Congress votes to cast out the ICBN and
implement the PhyloCode, then phylogenetically-defined names will have a
right to not be denoted as "different" in some way.  Until then, they need
a slash or an asterisk or a prefix or suffix or something, not as a Scarlet
Letter, but simply to avoid confusion.

No one objects to New ways of doing things.  But it infuriates a lot of
people when the New takes up various aspects of the Old, redefines them,
and twists them around so you're not sure if you recognize them any
more.  "Monophyly" had a perfectly good definition going back to
Haeckel.  Cladistics comes on the scene and redefines it, tightens it up,
narrows it.  Rational pleas to use a new term for the new stricter concept
("holophyly") are largely ignored.  It is this sheer lack of respect for
what has been done before that is a major impediment to many
traditionalists taking up New proposals.

>  whereas in time it will be seen that it is the names of canonical
> systematics that need a disclaimer:

Gee, and you wonder why I argued to nip PhyloCode in the bud?  I guess
maybe I'm not just paranoid after all.  It's pretty clear that the
supplantation of the ICBN is an ultimate goal of the PhyloCode.


Thomas G. Lammers, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor and Curator of the Herbarium (OSH)
Department of Biology and Microbiology
University of Wisconsin Oshkosh
Oshkosh, Wisconsin 54901-8640 USA

e-mail:       lammers at uwosh.edu
phone:      920-424-7085
fax:           920-424-1101

Plant systematics; classification, nomenclature, evolution, and
biogeography of the Campanulaceae s. lat.
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