List order (was: Maximum Taxon names within a single Parent)

[Barry Roth]

 A good answer to a "loaded" question!  Good intuition beats bad cladistics any day.  (I concede the possible rejoinder that we only know if it's good intuition after we test it cladistically.)
In an unbroken, linear list (which I what I assume we are talking about:  all component items of equal dignity), it is certainly possible to place similar items next to each other.  But in a typical taxonomic group, sooner or later there is a residue of items that are not very similar to anything (in terms of the similarity criteria used for grouping), and each of them must stand next to some other item, similar or not.  So sometimes "next to" is significant, sometimes not.
Barry
  Richard Pyle <deepreef at BISHOPMUSEUM.ORG> wrote: As to your question....well, I guess the best reasons that I can think of
for capturing mostly relate to the fact that it is a prototypical way of
representing interpreted phylogeny (either before the days of cladograms, or
by those "classical" taxonomists who, while rejecting the practice of
cladistics and the cladograms often associated with it, nevertheless often
have profound insight into what intra-rank relationships might be).


---------------------------------
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup