nomenclature

[B. J. Tindall]

So, let the Phylocode co-exist with the three existing codes. Let's assume
that there are 5 million known species which have been named according to
the existing codes, and at least 100,000 have not been picked up by the
Zoological Record. Then the majority of these species get coverted to
"least inclusive taxonomic units" so you have the same "biological
entities" (i.e. species of LITUs), which means a maximum of 5 million names
of LITUs. If there is not 100% equivalence between species and LITUs then
one has to sit down and work out where there is corelation between the 5
million species names (100,000 of which are not in a database) and the "X"
million LITU names.......any offers to do that? Of course there is then the
situation where an LITU is described under the Phylocode, but does not
qualify under existing codes - so what list do we use for Species 2000?
Heard of the Mars project which missed the target because the US was
working in inches and the Europeans in metres, and someone got their
coversion factors wrong?
By the way can anyone send me a list of ALL the names of generic homonyms
between botany, zoology and bacteriology......it would save me having to do
this manually via the Internet?
I am not against change - I changed to SI units in physics at school, there
were nomenclatural changes in chemistry, took decimalisation of pounds
shillings and pence (in the UK) in my stride 30 years ago, learnt another
language at 28, and we go "Euro" in less than one year, but the real issue
is not about names it is about our changing perspective of the way
organisms are classified and neither the Phylocode, nor any of the existing
codes really have an answer to the problem of changes in classification.
Names of species remain stable if we do not change the classification, and
the LITUs within a clade only remain constant if we do not change the
classification - or have I missed the point!?
Brian

>At 07:33 PM 4/4/01, Doug Yanega wrote:
>>Curtis Clark wrote:
>>
>> >The only
>> >reasons they can't coexist are reasons of personality, not of logic.
>>
>>Not so. If someone publishes clade names for Phylocode purposes, then they
>>will very often satisfy the ICZN/ICBN guidelines for being validly
>>published - and forever thereafter, even if they violate various code
>>provisions, they will still need to be shoehorned into the traditional
>>system, if only to declare them all nomina nuda or whatever.
>
>That's not logic, that's b*llsh*t. It's the same as if botanists of the
>last century said that because descriptions of new plants in newspapers
>could be validly published according to the ICBN, we should ban newspapers.
>Instead, the ICBN rules were changed to eliminate newspaper publication
>(although see Joe Laferriere's posts of several years ago for a different
>take on this).
>
>If the Phylocode people are intentionally trying to make the requirements
>so similar that Phylocode names are also ICxN names, that is a serious
>problem. But it is a problem of personalities. On the other hand, some of
>the aspects of Phylocode seem to be quite different--I haven't read the
>section on typification in a while, but some of the proposals would have
>required a Phylocode group to have at least *two* types ("the least
>inclusive group containing both X and Y"), which violates ICBN (they could
>not be syntypes, since they are explicitly regarded as non-equivalent), and
>I imagine ICZN as well. And if there is still a problem, it can be fixed.
>
>Why is it that Phylocode discussions always break down into alarmist
>rhetoric? A lot of you who work in the United States are familiar with the
>rectilinear land survey of township/range/section. For various reasons, it
>is not algorithmically convertible (in any useful way) to
>latitude/longitude. And yet no one (that I know of) claims that we have to
>make the decision to use one or the other. Each has its purpose--lat/long
>is most useful for GIS, rectilinear when you are driving section line roads
>in the Great Plains with no GPS. I'll say it again, there is no *logical*
>reason why Phylocode and ICxN can't coexist.
>
>
>--
>Curtis Clark                  http://www.csupomona.edu/~jcclark/
>Biological Sciences Department             Voice: (909) 869-4062
>California State Polytechnic University      FAX: (909) 869-4078
>Pomona CA 91768-4032  USA                  jcclark at csupomona.edu
>


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