[Taxacom] Endless Subject

[Richard Zander]

Mario:

ALL classifications are NOT special-purpose ones. Maximizing
evolutionary information should produce a maximized predictive
classification. This is from phenetics (total similarity) and
phylogenetic (sister-group) and phyletic (ancestor-descendant)
information, and should be of great use for general purposes by other
scientists. This is as non-special purpose as one can imagine. 

"Separating groups that belong together"???? A bit assertive, aren't
you? Don't they belong together solely by holophyly, an artificial
classification system? Remember that holophyly is not evolutionary
monophyly.

What's this? Fed-up? You are speaking for others? Who you say are going
nowhere? Hey, "others", are we going nowhere or is something interesting
being accomplished in this discussion of paraphyly?

There is a delete key. And much of interest on Taxacom apart from this
thread.

*****************************
Richard H. Zander 
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Missouri Botanical Garden
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richard.zander at mobot.org
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*****************************

-----Original Message-----
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
[mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Mario Blanco
Sent: Friday, April 03, 2009 2:11 PM
To: TAXACOM
Subject: [Taxacom] Endless Subject

ALL classifications are special-purpose classifications. How is your
preferred classification not a special-purpose one?

And I completely disagree with your statement that phylogenetic
classifications eliminate descendant-ancestor relationships. In my
opinion, a paraphyletic classification cripples such information by
separating groups that belong together. Isn't it funny how we can view
the same problem from two very different perspectives? It all depends on
what your special purpose is.

But hey, let's happily continue this discussion ad infinitum. I wonder
how many Taxacomers have gotten fed up with this endless thread that is
going nowhere and finally decided to unsubscribe, looking for a forum
that actually discusses real biology.
-Mario