[Taxacom] GOMGOACAT - Pteridophyta

[Frederick W Schueler]

Hovenkamp, P. (Peter) wrote:
  >
> But why is it that every now and then (is it indeed with increasing
> frequency or is my memory failing me?) we need to be smothered on
> Taxacom with this sort of discussion? It does not seem to result in
> anything useful - certainly not in better informed opinions being
> vented. 

* maybe it's because there's really two aspects to evolutionary history: 
patterns of descent and patterns of ecological difference, and as long 
as the tension between them is unresolved in the construction of 
classifications there will be a certain incompleteness to systematic 
practice.

As I've said before, as long as there's no attempt to integrate 
phylogenetic history with quantitative measurement of the ecological 
differences among species and higher taxa (the pheneticists' 'overall 
similarity'), we're only telling half of the story. Calling 
plesiomorphic groups of lineages taxa is an expression of the existence 
of this problem, but it's not a solution.

fred.
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If we'd been meant to refer to species by made-up vernacular names,
                God wouldn't have created Linnaeus!
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