[Taxacom] Order Campanulales (worth maintaining?)

[Jim Croft]

I can not believe I am reading this. Don't anyone dare complain about
underfunded taxonomy on this list.  No wonder people say taxonomy is
not a science. If I was a science funding agency (are you listening,
NSF?), taxonomy would not get a brass razoo. oh... I see you ARE
listening, NSF...

There should always be evidence to back a lump or split decision in a
classification, even if you choose to be selective about it, even if
you weight it, even if it is trivial as something like
consistency/compatability with existing practice. If you want to
convince people of a truth, you have to produce evidence, otherwise it
is devoid of understanding, just a meaningless and unproductive battle
of belief.

If you can not produce reason, rationale and evidence for your
decision, I cannot test it, I cannot refute it, I can not understand
it, I just have to believe it (or not). You are a religion, not a
science and you do not deserve my tax dollar.

In taxonomy a cigar is never just a cigar. It is a manufactured
product of the leaf of Nicotiana tabacum, which is related to other
species of Nicotiana, a genus of like plants in the family Solanace, a
family in the dicot order... at least that is what the evidence
suggests.

jim

On Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 1:10 AM, Curtis Clark <lists at curtisclark.org> wrote:
> On 2011-02-16 07:12, Kenneth Kinman wrote:
>> This is a matter of lumping vs. splitting, not evidence.
> Nicely put, Ken. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
>
> --
> Curtis Clark
> Cal Poly Pomona
>
>
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-- 
_________________
Jim Croft ~ jim.croft at gmail.com ~ +61-2-62509499 ~ http://about.me/jrc
'A civilized society is one which tolerates eccentricity to the point
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 - Robert Frost, poet (1874-1963)

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