[Taxacom] The future of taxonomy

[Gurcharan Singh-satyam]

Though I am a plant taxonomist, but the current controversy of Drosophila 
reminds me of a situation in Botany in early sixtees and seventees when 
agriculturists, horticulturists and experimental botanists were shouting 
from rooftops to stop frequent name changes of economic plants, without any 
effect on Taxonomists. It was only when it was realised the our number one 
economic plant wheat may no longer be Triticum aestivum and may be replaced 
by relatively unknown T. hybernum, that we agreed upon the principle of 
conservation of the names of species and we can now be at peace call wheat 
as T. aestivum and tomato as Lycopersicon esculentum for ever. May be few 
jolts like paraphyly of Drosophila will settle the problems of criteria for 
cicumscription of Taxa in both zoology and botany.

Gurcharan Singh
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Stephen Gaimari" <SGaimari at cdfa.ca.gov>
To: <TAXACOM at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
Sent: Thursday, February 19, 2009 10:43 PM
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] The future of taxonomy


> To directly address the second paragraph, the position (regarding 
> Drosophila melanogaster) is far more simple than the scenarios of what 
> "they" are in favor of, or willing to entertain, etc. This is entirely an 
> issue of nomenclature, not phylogenetics at all. The defining principles 
> of nomenclature are completely independent of scientific opinions of 
> relationships among taxa. However, phylogenetic opinions are being used to 
> *try* to disrupt a perfectly stable nomenclatural situation. Nomenclature 
> does not follow the phylogenetic-opinion-du-jour. Nomenclature doesn't 
> care whether you lump, split, preserve monophyly, or accept paraphyly, and 
> it doesn't care who is the sister-group or who shares the 
> ancestor-descendant relationship, or whether there is massive homoplasy.
> Cheers,
> Steve
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Dr. Stephen D. Gaimari
> Program Supervisor (Entomology) &
> Co-Curator, California State Collection of Arthropods
>
> Plant Pest Diagnostics Lab
> California Department of Food and Agriculture
> 3294 Meadowview Road
> Sacramento, CA 95832-1448, USA
>
> 916-262-1131 (tel.)
> 916-262-1190 (fax)
> sgaimari at cdfa.ca.gov
> http://www.cdfa.ca.gov/phpps/ppd/staff/sgaimari.html
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>>>> "Richard Zander" <Richard.Zander at mobot.org> 2/19/2009 7:54 AM >>>
> The comment of Ken Kinman, Karl, is, I think, a general comment about 
> attitudes of phylogeneticists towards ancestor-descendant relationships, 
> which their sister-group methodology actually demonstrates quite nicely 
> through the misunderstood phenomenon of "massive homoplasy" on a molecular 
> tree.
>
> You neglected to explain the position of the U.S.-based systematists 
> regarding NOT splitting. Are they in favor of lumping many of the taxa 
> into one monophyletic species to preserve monophyly? Or are they willing 
> to entertain BOTH sister-group and ancestor-descendant relationships in 
> their taxonomy because they are either responsible or have a sense of 
> shame?
>
> _______________________
> Richard H. Zander
> Missouri Botanical Garden
> PO Box 299
> St. Louis, MO 63166 U.S.A.
> richard.zander at mobot.org
>
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu on behalf of Karl Magnacca
> Sent: Thu 2/19/2009 4:32 AM
> To: TAXACOM at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] The future of taxonomy
>
>
>
> On Thu, February 19, 2009 3:24 am, Kenneth Kinman wrote:
>>       Yes, I agree that it is "importunate homage" to strictly cladistic
>> nomenclature, and also that wonderful opportunities are therefore being
>> missed.  But this is not too surprising given that so much funding
>> passes through a few narrow channels in Washington D.C., and "strict
>> cladism" has been rewarded for decades through those channels.  Not at
>> all surprising that government-backed projects like NCBI, Tree of Life,
>> and so on, perpetuate the myth that paraphyly is bad, because those who
>> perpetuate it are continually rewarded for doing so.
>
> Considering that nearly all of the people pushing hard to split up
> Drosophila are 1) not from or working in the US, and/or 2) not
> systematists/phylogeneticists - whereas most of those I know who are
> strongly opposed to it are NSF or USDA-funded systematists (along with
> many who are not, of course) - this is a remarkably absurd comment.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
>
> Taxacom Mailing List
>
> Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
>
> http://mailman.nhm.ku.edu/mailman/listinfo/taxacom
>
> The entire Taxacom Archive back to 1992 can be searched with either of 
> these methods:
>
> http://taxacom.markmail.org
>
> Or use a Google search specified as: 
> site:mailman.nhm.ku.edu/pipermail/taxacom  your search terms here
> _______________________________________________
>
> Taxacom Mailing List
>
> Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
>
> http://mailman.nhm.ku.edu/mailman/listinfo/taxacom
>
> The entire Taxacom Archive back to 1992 can be searched with either of 
> these methods:
>
> http://taxacom.markmail.org
>
> Or use a Google search specified as: 
> site:mailman.nhm.ku.edu/pipermail/taxacom  your search terms here