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

[Gurcharan Singh-satyam]

I fail to understand why some of the colleagues insist on estabilshing 
paraphyletic taxa. I for one do not totally agree with APG group, especially 
with regard to the attempt (through PhylloCode) to partially or completely 
abandon Linnaean hierarch of names, which ICBN is rightly sticking to. 
Thorne has consistently shown how cladistic information can be used and 
incorporated into Linnaean hierarchy. We should not be happy with using the 
informal names like Rosids, Asterids, etc. when formal group names like 
Rosidae and Asteridae can be used and have been used by Thorne and Reveal. 
They have also shown how classifications can be developed without major 
contradictions with other workers.
     It is reasonable to recognise a taxon not knowing that some members 
have been left out, but having known (and knowing which members have been 
left out) that the group is paraphyletic, why to insist for restricting its 
circumscription.
      As I wrote earlier, it is better to united separated members of a 
family. The search for lost members should go on, and that is the aim of 
cladists, but once those lost members are found out, bring them to the 
family fold.

Gurcharan Singh


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John La Duke" <john_laduke at und.nodak.edu>
To: <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
Sent: Friday, April 10, 2009 9:14 PM
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] burn out (was: classification of Class Rosopsida)


> 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
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
>
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> The Taxacom archive going back to 1992 may be searched with either of 
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>
> (1) http://taxacom.markmail.org
>
> Or (2) a Google search specified as: 
> site:mailman.nhm.ku.edu/pipermail/taxacom  your search terms here