Latin names versus scientific names [was: So much for nomenclatural stability]

[Karl Magnacca]

On 12 Mar 2005 at 21:21, Thomas Lammers wrote:
>> What is it about cladistics (and phylogenetics more broadly) that
>> turns people into savage beasts?
>
> Do you mean, what  gets non-cladists so sore at cladists?

No, I was thinking more generally.  Why were cladists so harshly
attacked in the beginning, why are they now doing the same things to non-
cladists, why do parsimonians so hate likelihoodists, etc., etc.  It
just seems like a much more angry field than most.

> I'll tell you: their insistence that unless you do things their way,
> you are not doing science.  That is the most awful imprecation one can
> hurl at a scientist -- that what you are doing is Not Science.  Nothing
> else could cut to the quick so terribly.

Okay, exactly who are you talking about?  The only people I hear like
that are those like Steve Farris and Kevin Nixon, whose opinions I have
a hard time taking seriously because they come off as rants.

Karl
=====================
Karl Magnacca, USGS-BRD
PO Box 11, Hawaii Natl. Park, HI 96718
"Democracy used to be a good thing, but now it has
gotten into the wrong hands."   --Sen. Jesse Helms