[Taxacom] "Natural" groups

[Richard Zander]

Yes, "natural groups" is a ancient term, but with advent of incorporating evolution into classification, it has gained a more specialized meaning. Darwin probably introduced the idea of evolutionary monophyly, then phylogeneticists introduced the idea of phylogenetic monophyly, the latter I think is a regression to Platonic forms. 
 
_______________________
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 Barry Roth
Sent: Tue 12/21/2010 12:44 PM
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: [Taxacom] "Natural" groups



Use of the term "natural group" goes back a long way, to before the art or science of estimating phylogenetic relationships was very far advanced. It would be interesting to see some definitions from, say, the 1920s. Has that term always implied monophyletic (in the broad sense, paraphyly having become a concern later) groups?

Barry

On Dec 21, 2010, at 8:11 AM, Kim van der Linde <kim at kimvdlinde.com> wrote:

>
>
> On 12/21/2010 12:25 AM, Stephen Thorpe wrote:
>>> All paraphyletic taxa are unnatural
>>
>> yep, true pretty much by definition
>
> Yeah if you take that taxa should be representative of evolutionary
> history. Which is arguable. If it is based on evolutionary similarity,
> major changes in a single branch make it far more logical to have
> paraphyletic groups. And in a sense, more natural. It just depends on
> how you define natural.
>
> Kim
> --
> http://www.kimvdlinde.com <http://www.kimvdlinde.com/> 
>
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