language

[Thomas DiBenedetto]

-----Original Message-----
From: Byron J. Adams [mailto:bjadams at UFL.EDU]
...Nature did indeed produce the species we've recovered, the
problem is that humans have failed to recover and represent the "higher"
ranks created by nature, producing instead arbitrary, artificial entities,
such as genera.

I completely agree with what I take to be your points Byron. That is why i
used the qualifier "potentially" to describe the equivalancy between
"species" and genera. There is no doubt that our classifications are
littered with arbirtrary and artificial entities. But when higher taxa are
proposed as the results of a thorough cladistic revision, they achieve a
"strongly-corroborated-hypothesis" status that is equivalent to the status
of a well supported species. Such higher taxa can then be given a rank, such
as "genus", if one finds it useful to do so, and in that case, we can have a
"genus" that actually means something.
-tom