[Taxacom] Evolutionary misconceptions

[Bob Mesibov]

Richard Pyle wrote:

"I'm not sure that I fully endorse the statement, "The basis of taxonomy is that taxa stay stable long enough to spread to some extent about the earth." I would say that the basis of taxonomy is the heterogeny of forms of life on Earth. It's anybody's guess how stable any particular taxon is over periods of time spanning more than a few centuries."

Richard P. favours pattern and Richard Z. favours process. The two are so thoroughly mixed up in taxonomy that it's a wonder someone hasn't come up with the biological equivalent of the physicist's 'spacetime'.

What's really neat to an onlooker is the way pattern-based taxa (garden variety 'species') get thrown into a process-based (evolutionary-model-based) phylogenetic analysis and come out as different pattern-based taxa (revised classification, new diagnoses) which then get studied in process-based (evo-devo, biogeography) investigations.

The clearest oversight that I've read of just what's going here is in Kirk Fitzhugh's recent papers. Of course, if you accept Fitzhugh's analysis you need to give up arguing whether or not species are real.
-- 
Dr Robert Mesibov
Honorary Research Associate
Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, and
School of Zoology, University of Tasmania
Home contact: PO Box 101, Penguin, Tasmania, Australia 7316
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