[Taxacom] Paraphyly/predictivity

[Peter Stevens]

Yes - to whatever part of the first part of the message you think  
such a reply might be applicable.

p.
On Mar 28, 2009, at 6:49 PM, Jim Croft wrote:

> Is it still not a matter of some interest that EricOIDEAE are so
> poorly represented in Australia?
>
> Or are we witnessing the insidious ascent of rampant strict-familyism
> and the demise of the nomenclatural codes, civilization and the cosmos
> as we know them?
>
> jim
>
>  - if you think turning all our epacrids into heathers is a problem,
> we also have to explain to a doubting public that all their
> Callistemon bottle-brushes are in fact Melaleuca paper-barks and all
> their Dryandras are just Banksias who have't got their act together
> (conversations involve intersecting sets of colourful adjectives
> rather than common nouns).  Yep, communication and predictability is
> where it is all at...  Taxonomy: the art of telling people what they
> really don't want to hear...  :)
>
> On Sun, Mar 29, 2009 at 5:06 AM, Peter Stevens  
> <peter.stevens at mobot.org> wrote:
>> well, there are a variety of definitions of predictivity out there.
>> But thinking of common nouns and classifications, in folk
>> classifications and in language generally, when nouns are members of
>> contrast sets, they are generally non-overlapping - that is, one does
>> not include the other. It clearly helps in communication.  This might
>> be relevant when we are thinking of paraphyly and monophyly.  When I
>> was working on my thesis, it was a matter of some interest that
>> Ericaceae (the rhododendron/blueberry/heather family) were so poorly
>> represented in Australia - except that it has turned out that they
>> are very well represented there, but we were calling them
>> Epacridaceae then, and so we thought that they were irrelevant when
>> thinking about the distribution of Ericaceae...
>>
>> p.
>>
>>
>> On Mar 28, 2009, at 2:45 AM, Mike Dallwitz wrote:
>>
>>> Barry Roth wrote:
>>>
>>>> I'm not sure why I would want to make a classification unless I
>>>> thought I
>>>> could get something more out of it than what I put into it. And I
>>>> think this
>>>> boils down to predictivity. Because of the fact of organic
>>>> evolution, the
>>>> classification that best serves this need / desire will be one
>>>> strongly
>>>> grounded in phylogeny.
>>>
>>> One thing that you get out of any classification that includes
>>> names is the
>>> ability to communicate. All common nouns correspond to
>>> classifications,
>>> which are presumably chosen (or evolve) for their usefulness for
>>> communication, which probably depends on our ability to mentally
>>> picture and
>>> remember the concept of the noun, which is probably related to its
>>> predictivity in some sense.
>>>
>>> Have classifications based on cladistic methods been shown to have
>>> better
>>> predictivity than other classifications? Predictivity could (for
>>> example) be
>>> defined as in
>>>
>>> Gower J.C. 1974. Maximal Predictive Classification. Biometrics 30:
>>> 643-654.
>>> Colless D.H. 1984. A method for hierarchical clustering based on
>>>      predictivity. Systematic Zoology 33: 64-68.
>>>
>>>> This also makes me more look charitably on monophyletic (i.e.,
>>>> holophyletic)
>>>> groups than paraphyletic groups.
>>>
>>> Does this mean that belonging to a paraphyletic group such as  
>>> reptiles
>>> usually has less predictive value than belonging to any of the
>>> monophyletic
>>> groups to which reptiles belong?
>>>
>>> --
>>> Mike Dallwitz
>>> Contact information: http://delta-intkey.com/contact/dallwitz.htm
>>> DELTA home page: http://delta-intkey.com
>>>
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>>
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>
>
>
> -- 
> _________________
> Jim Croft ~ jim.croft at gmail.com ~ +61-2-62509499
>
> "Words, as is well known, are the great foes of reality."
> - Joseph Conrad, author (1857-1924)
>
> "I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said,
> but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I  
> meant."
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