[Taxacom] Why Australians are more real than Americans: implications for taxonomy!

[Richard Pyle]

The vast majority of this is a failure to communicate.

Aloha,
Rich


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Stephen Thorpe [mailto:s.thorpe at auckland.ac.nz] 
> Sent: Sunday, September 06, 2009 1:10 PM
> To: Richard Pyle; TAXACOM at mailman.nhm.ku.edu; 'Jim Croft'
> Subject: RE: Why Australians are more real than Americans: 
> implications for taxonomy!
> 
> I don't wanna enter the debate either, but I will just say:
> 
> >First, don't fall into the trap of assuming that if species 
> lack "real" 
> >boundaries, then we would see a perfect continum in nature 
> right now.  
> >While
> this *is* true if you look at total biodiversity over its 
> entire history on Earth; it is *not* a logical expectation at 
> any given snap-shot in time
> 
> You are in the right ballpark, but playing the wrong game! 
> 
> >First, don't fall into the trap of assuming that if species 
> lack "real" 
> >boundaries, then we would see a perfect continum in nature right now
> It isn't a trap, it is a fact that if there were no "real" 
> boundaries, then we would indeed see a perfect continuum in 
> nature right now!
> 
> >While this *is* true if you look at total biodiversity over 
> its entire 
> >history on Earth; it is *not* a logical expectation at any given 
> >snap-shot in time
> It may well be true that there in fact aren't "real" 
> boundaries if you look at total biodiversity over its entire 
> history on Earth, but a lack of "real" boundaries over all 
> time doesn't prevent there being "real" boundaries in any 
> given snap-shot, including right now, but that is my point, 
> not yours! THERE ARE 'REAL' BOUNDARIES RIGHT NOW, WHICH IS 
> WHY WE DON'T SEE A CONTINUUM RIGHT NOW! This is independent 
> of whether or not there are "real" boundaries over entire history ...
> 
> Taxonomists describe morphological diversity and the gaps 
> between them. They don't specify or impose the gaps, they 
> describe the gaps by looking at nature ...
> 
> Stephen
> 
> 
> ________________________________________
> From: Richard Pyle [deepreef at bishopmuseum.org]
> Sent: Monday, 7 September 2009 10:31 a.m.
> To: Stephen Thorpe; TAXACOM at mailman.nhm.ku.edu; 'Jim Croft'
> Subject: RE: Why Australians are more real than Americans: 
> implications for taxonomy!
> 
> Seriously...I don't want to enter in this debate again.  My 
> views on this are well-documented in the Taxacom archives.
> 
> But I do feel compelled to clear a couple of things.
> 
> First, don't fall into the trap of assuming that if species 
> lack "real"
> boundaries, then we would see a perfect continum in nature 
> right now.  While this *is* true if you look at total 
> biodiversity over its entire history on Earth; it is *not* a 
> logical expectation at any given snap-shot in time.
> 
> Second, as long as you conceed that the boundaries are fuzzy, 
> then we are really only arguing about the average degree of 
> fuzziness across biodiversity.  In your view, most species 
> boundaries have a scale of fuzz on par with the beaches of 
> Australia.  In my view, the fuzziness of most species 
> boundaries is more on a scale such that Australia, Indonesia, 
> and New Guinea have overlapping (sometimes broadly overlapping) fuzz.
> 
> Third, humans are a bad example, both because of our sudden 
> and dramatic increase in dispersal potential in the past 
> couple of centruries, and because it's too close to home.
> 
> Aloha,
> Rich
> 
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Stephen Thorpe [mailto:s.thorpe at auckland.ac.nz]
> > Sent: Sunday, September 06, 2009 11:53 AM
> > To: Richard Pyle; TAXACOM at mailman.nhm.ku.edu; 'Jim Croft'
> > Subject: RE: Why Australians are more real than Americans:
> > implications for taxonomy!
> >
> > >So... if I understand you correctly... you're under the
> > delusi...err....impression that "real" species boundaries exist in 
> > nature outside of human imagination and convenience
> > -- correct?
> >
> > It is manifestly self-evidently so! To deny this is up there with 
> > Grehanian denial of the evidence that points to the human-chimp 
> > relationship!
> > Importantly, though, I am NOT saying that species boundaries are 
> > ALWAYS absolutely precise and clear, and indeed, there isn't an 
> > absolutely precise boundary between Australia and ocean 
> either - the 
> > tide goes in and out and it is a fuzzy boundary. Nevertheless, 
> > Australia does have "real" boundaries in nature outside of human 
> > imagination and convenience -- correct?
> >
> > To see the "real" species boundaries, you only have to 
> imagine a world 
> > in which there were none. I hope you have the capacity for 
> > imagination! :) In such a world, every morphotype would grade 
> > imperceptibly into every other morphotype. Species boundaries would 
> > have to be imposed completely arbitrarily.
> >
> > I repeat a previous analogy: there are heavy people and there are 
> > light people, but it is not a very useful classification because of 
> > the continuum between them. But if all people of a certain 
> > intermediate weight class died out, then we could classify people 
> > usefully by weight. It would not be a taxonomic 
> classification, but it 
> > could be! Imagine a world with two extant species of Homo, 
> > morphologically identical except that one species were 30-60kg, and 
> > the other species 70-120kg as adults...
> >
> > Stephen
> >
> > ________________________________________
> > From: Richard Pyle [deepreef at bishopmuseum.org]
> > Sent: Monday, 7 September 2009 9:36 a.m.
> > To: Stephen Thorpe; TAXACOM at mailman.nhm.ku.edu; 'Jim Croft'
> > Subject: RE: Why Australians are more real than Americans:
> > implications for taxonomy!
> >
> > > Yes, Richard, species ARE real entities in the world! They
> > might not
> > > have existed in a world where there was an unbroken
> > continuum between
> > > diverse morphologies, but in our world there are "gaps" 
> which break 
> > > the biotic realm up into species.
> >
> > Please... for the sake of us all... don't get me started. :-)
> >
> > So... if I understand you correctly... you're under the 
> > delusi...err....impression that "real" species boundaries exist in 
> > nature outside of human imagination and convenience
> > -- correct?
> >
> > If so, we are operating under fundamentally different presumptions 
> > about the nature of biodiversity, so we will never arrive 
> at a mutual 
> > understanding of what is meant by a "taxon concept 
> circumscription"*.
> >
> > No sense cluttering the list again with this debate -- there are 
> > enough iterations of it in the Taxacom archives.
> >
> > Aloha,
> > Rich
> >
> > *Note: My use of the elaborated term "taxon concept 
> circumscription" 
> > is to disguish it from "species concept" (in the sense of 
> "biological 
> > species concept", "phylogenetic species concept", etc.) -- 
> which is an 
> > equally contentious and very-much related debate, but still quite 
> > different from the "species are real" debate.==