[Taxacom] [TAXACOM] Why Taxonomy does NOT matter

[Richard Zander]

I think that taxonomy can subsume all the trendy aspects of
phylogenetics (DNA, fancy math, trees) and again be attractive to deans
and funders. Remember that morphological and molecular cladograms are
innocent. It is the uses to which the lab coaters put them that are
crippling to theory and damaging to biodiversity and evolutionary study.


Although one might say that phylogeneticists should simply not do
classification, unless we taxonomists accept the utility of their
analytic methods and find ways to incorporate the methods, we don't
deserve to get funding.

Phylogenetics can be totally explained on the basis of alpha taxonomy,
but not vice versa. Alpha taxonomy can conciliate the inconsistencies of
phylogenetics, e.g. differences between molecular and morphological
cladograms of the same species, or when exemplars of the same taxon do
not cluster contiguously on a cladogram. Thus, we taxonomists can, if we
use the methods, attract funders with DNA and fancy math. What are the
lab coaters for if not to do the lab work? Make friends.

Do the following (finally got the paper accepted):
1. Trust your alpha taxonomy. It is a hard-won set of heuristics that in
large is accurate.

2. Use morphological parsimony as a start to make a natural key that in
general identifies taxa low in the hypothetical tree of life.

3. Interpret molecular paraphyly and phylogenetic polyphyly as
indicators of progenitor-descendant diachronic (caulistic) evolution and
make an evolutionary tree (a Besseyan cactus). 

4. Compare the morphological and the molecular cladograms and
hypothesize that taxa low in the morphological tree but high in the
molecular tree are ancestral taxa of all lineages in between. Add this
info to the Besseyan cactus.

5. Use Dollo's Law (at organimal level, see Gould SJ (1970) Dollo on
Dollo's Law: irreversibility and the status of evolutionary laws.
Journal of the History of Biology 3: 189-212) to further infer direction
of evolution.

6. Create a classification based on both synchronic (clusters of present
day taxa) and diachronic (theoretical progression of taxa as descent
with modification) relationships. 

Use the above to combine the new analytic methods with common sense in
classification. OR come up with something else. This contretemps of
alpha taxonomists and phylogeneticists should end. My recently accepted
paper "Structuralism in Phylogenetic Systematics" should come out
eventually in Biological Theory. Yes, this is a challenge, and not just
to phylogeneticists.


* * * * * * * * * * * * 
Richard H. Zander 
Missouri Botanical Garden, PO Box 299, St. Louis, MO 63166-0299 USA 
Web sites: http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/resbot/ and
http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/bfna/bfnamenu.htm
Modern Evolutionary Systematics Web site:
http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/resbot/21EvSy.htm



-----Original Message-----
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
[mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Stephen Thorpe
Sent: Monday, April 18, 2011 5:38 PM
To: Bob Mesibov; fhaas at icipe.org
Cc: TAXACOM
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] [TAXACOM] Why Taxonomy does NOT matter

I suspect the decline in taxonomy (or, more strictly, the decline in
recruitment of new taxonomists - the older ones are still as active as
ever) rests firmly on economic factors stemming from a change in funding
systems, coupled by a greater preoccupation with citation rates in a
more competitive economic environment. This, to my mind at least, goes
some way to explaining the phenomenon of "trendy science" sucking all
the funding until something newer comes along and they all jump on that
bandwagon...