[Taxacom] burn out (was: classification of Class Rosopsida)

[John La Duke]

Ken

I agree with Mario.  Submit it for publication.  That is what science  
is about.  Taxacom is a discussion list.  You can say anything here,  
and many do.

John

On Apr 10, 2009, at 9:47 AM, Kenneth Kinman wrote:

> Hi Mario,
>       Well, I did cite Thorne and Reveal, 2007, as my newest source.
> And the previous updates of my angiosperm classification on taxacom  
> make
> it pretty clear that I get most of my cladistic information from APG
> (especially Peter Stevens' website).  I also get some information from
> other websites and papers as well, in order to make it as much of a
> consensus as possible.
>       If I were going to publish this classification, it would  
> certainly
> give a lot more information about the taxa (and their
> interrelationships), as well as a bibliography.  However, at this  
> point,
> traditional and APG classifications are still so far apart that it  
> would
> largely be a waste of time and energy trying to get it published.  And
> it would be ignored by most strict cladists anyway simply because it
> contains two paraphyletic subclasses.
>       As long as paraphyly is such a major issue, I will not devote
> large amounts of time on the classification of any particular  
> taxon.  My
> strategy is to show many different examples where more informative
> "consensus" classifications could be forged if paraphylophobia wasn't
> getting in the way.  Unfortunately, the paraphyly issue isn't going  
> away
> anytime soon.  I feel sort of like those economists who were warning
> five or ten years ago that all those financial derivatives were  
> going to
> be bad for the economy in the long-term, but they were drowned out by
> those who were just looking at the short term gains.  The lesson to be
> learned could be put this way:    a modicum of paraphyly  
> ("regulation")
> would go a long way towards curbing the runaway "cladification"  
> which is
> increasingly offering diminishing returns and piling up insidious
> damage.  It's frustrating, and perhaps the reason I tend to mainly  
> do it
> only the first few months of the year and then I get burned out again.
>         --------Ken Kinman
> ---------------------------------------------------
> Mario Blanco wrote:
> Ken,
> I don't want to sound cynical, but if you want your classification  
> to be
> widely accepted, then why don't you actually publish it? You know that
> most scientists won't pay serious attention to your classification
> unless it is published in a scientific journal or book. In such a  
> medium
> you can elaborate more on your arguments to convince the readers. Like
> Jim, I don't see where your evidence comes from. You might know it,  
> but
> you don't let us see it. You don't even cite a single source. Your
> assertion "I've put a great deal of thought and time over the last 15
> years into angiosperm classification in particular" doesn't show us  
> the
> evidence, and again, is simply an argument that invokes authority
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_authority). You won't convince
> scientists this way.
> Plus, if you have coined names for new groups, these are not valid
> unless they have been properly distributed in printed matter (Art.  
> 29 of
> the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature):
> -Mario
>
>
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John La Duke
john_laduke at und.nodak.edu