[Taxacom] Addendum to my last post on Kingdom Protista

[David Patterson]

Stephen

Agreed, the retention of ranks, which have no objective meaning, just gets us all tangled up in an irrational mess.    None of the molecular phylogenies retain ranks, and classifications that I have worked on, say in microscope.mbl.edu or eutree.lifedesks.org lack them

My larger concern is that many of the 'taxa' are not given objective definitions, so we have terms like 'Rhizaria' or 'Amoebozoa' which mean very different things at different times and to different people. 

I cannot understand Ken's approach to classifications.

Is your interest in these matters professional?  It is clearly substantial.  I have been thinking about trying to build an on-line editing environment to let people assemble a comprehensive taxonomy - but such a structure needs some rules and some moderation so there is at least a consistent logic.  My view is that such a system must accommodate many points of view.  Does this have any interest

David Patterson



----- Original Message -----
From: "Barry Roth" <barry_roth at yahoo.com>
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Sent: Wednesday, July 22, 2009 12:41:33 AM (GMT-0500) America/New_York
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Addendum to my last post on Kingdom Protista

Yes, and to the extent that the plan would be rank-driven, it is a good idea NOT to encourage the ICZN to extend its scope above names of the traditional family-group.
 
Barry Roth

--- On Tue, 7/21/09, Stephen Thorpe <s.thorpe at auckland.ac.nz> wrote:


From: Stephen Thorpe <s.thorpe at auckland.ac.nz>
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Addendum to my last post on Kingdom Protista
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu, kennethkinman at webtv.net
Date: Tuesday, July 21, 2009, 8:33 PM


I really do think that the time has come to let go of fondly held  
Linnean obsessions of categorical ranks for taxa above family-group.  
Surely "superkingdom" is a self-contradiction - analogous to  
"supercosmos", or "superinfinite", or something! I can't see any  
alternative than to simply use unranked clade names, though one could  
perhaps SELECTIVELY label SOME as being equivalent to traditional  
categories? So Eukaryota would look something like this:

Eukaryota
Amoebozoa - Opisthokonta - Excavata - Plantae (kingdom) ...

and Opisthokonta would go something like:

Opisthokonta
Animalia (kingdom) - Fungi (kingdom) - ... [add various unranked  
"protist" clades]

Just a thought!

Stephen



Quoting Kenneth Kinman <kennethkinman at webtv.net>:

> P.S.  I meant to say Superphyla (not Superkingdoms) Excavata, Plantae,
> and Chromalveolata sensu lato (SAR).  Whether you want to call the
> second one Superphylum Plantae or Superphylum Archeplastida is up to the
> individual, but the term Plantae is far more familiar.
>          --------Ken
>
>
> _______________________________________________
>
> Taxacom Mailing List
> Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> http://mailman.nhm.ku.edu/mailman/listinfo/taxacom
>
> The Taxacom archive going back to 1992 may be searched with either  
> of these methods:
>
> (1) http://taxacom.markmail.org
>
> Or (2) a Google search specified as:   
> site:mailman.nhm.ku.edu/pipermail/taxacom  your search terms here
>



----------------------------------------------------------------
This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.


_______________________________________________

Taxacom Mailing List
Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
http://mailman.nhm.ku.edu/mailman/listinfo/taxacom

The Taxacom archive going back to 1992 may be searched with either of these methods:

(1) http://taxacom.markmail.org

Or (2) 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 Taxacom archive going back to 1992 may be searched with either of these methods:

(1) http://taxacom.markmail.org

Or (2) a Google search specified as:  site:mailman.nhm.ku.edu/pipermail/taxacom  your search terms here