hominid classification

[Ken Kinman]

John,
     I have continued to code my preliminary classification with a chimp-human clade (as follows):

  1  Cercopithecidae
  2  Propliopithecidae
  3  Pliopithecidae
  4  Proconsulidae
  ?  Oreopithecidae
  5  Hylobatidae
  6  Pongidae%
        1  Dryopithecus
        ?  Ouranopithecus
        2  Lufengpithecus
        B  Sivapithecus
        C  Pongo
        3  Gorilla
        ?  Samburupithecus
        4  Pan
        5  {{Hominidae}}
 _a_ Hominidae
        1  Ardipithecus
        ?  Sahelanthropus
        2  Australopithecus
       _a_ Homo

     HOWEVER, if Hominidae is sister to Sivapithecus, I would just move the {{Hominidae}} and recode the pongids.  Family Pongidae has the same contents as before:

  1  Cercopithecidae
  2  Propliopithecidae
  3  Pliopithecidae
  4  Proconsulidae
  ?  Oreopithecidae
  5  Hylobatidae
  6  Pongidae%
        1  Dryopithecus
        ?  Ouranopithecus
        2  Lufengpithecus
        B  Pongo
        C  Sivapithecus
        D  {{Hominidae}}
        3  Gorilla
        ?  Samburupithecus
        4  Pan
 _a_ Hominidae
        1  Ardipithecus
        ?  Sahelanthropus
        2  Australopithecus
       _a_ Homo

      And FINALLY, if Hominidae is sister to a Gorilla-Pan clade, a simple recoding also suffices (Family Pongidae continues to have the same contents).

  1  Cercopithecidae
  2  Propliopithecidae
  3  Pliopithecidae
  4  Proconsulidae
  ?  Oreopithecidae
  5  Hylobatidae
  6  Pongidae%
        1  Dryopithecus
        ?  Ouranopithecus
        2  Lufengpithecus
        B  Sivapithecus
        C  Pongo
        3  {{Hominidae}}
        4  Gorilla
        ?  Samburupithecus
        5  Pan
 _a_ Hominidae
        1  Ardipithecus
        ?  Sahelanthropus
        2  Australopithecus
       _a_ Homo

      And likewise, other topologies (such as Hominidae as sister to a Sivapithecus-Pongo clade or as sister to Pongo alone) would only require minor recoding.  Meanwhile, Family Pongidae has the same traditional contents no matter who turns out to be correct about the exact topology.  The result of this modular approach to classification means we can have our cake and eat it too:  stable taxon contents and a fluid topology that can change with new information.  I can see no advantage to erecting a Family Panidae, even if Gorilla and Pan do clade together (as in the second and third classifications above).  It's just as destabilizing as putting chimps into Family Hominidae, although not as bad as putting chimps into genus Homo (that proposal still makes me grimace like the sound of fingernails scraping down a blackboard).  The traditional Family Pongidae is not broken, so I wish people would quit trying to fix it.
        ---- Ken Kinman