[Taxacom] Order Campanulales (worth maintaining?)

[Curtis Clark]

On 2011-02-18 15:52, Richard Zander wrote:
> Note that your response to my argument accused me of a Departure from 
> Biology, which I believe is an axiom or at least a scary pronouncement,
Sometimes an opinion is just an opinion.
> and you ignored my theory of how genera might evolve,
There is no theory. I demolished it with your inability or unwillingness 
to address the evolutionary rates of split versus lumped genera. It was 
not rhetorical, and while it was sarcastic, that was predicated on my 
expectation that you would be unable or unwilling to answer it.
> which is an avoidance of theory typical of structuralist nonscience.
QED. I dismiss your remark because you have not provided evidence that 
genera are generally non-arbitrary. You dismiss my remark by applying a 
stock formula that you have used so often that I wonder if you have a 
keyboard macro.
> Also, I will play on any playing field (i.e. discuss constructively 
> any alternative theory) but that of structuralism (such as theory-free 
> discovery-process analysis).
As you define it. QED again.
> You probably did not mean lapses, and if I have harped in the past on 
> a theme based on some word you may have inadvertantly used instead of 
> a more appropriate word, I apologize.
I find grouping by shared homology to be useful. You accuse me 
(specifically, by lumping me with all cladists) of some sort of 
structuralist heresy. I'm annoyed by that, and it makes me unwilling to 
discuss things with you, since you have already made up your mind about me.

And now that I think about it, your grouping me with "cladists", absent 
any expressed theory, seems rather structuralist. Perhaps you have a 
theory. Could it be falsified by evidence from my actual intellectual 
history, and the factors that shaped it?
> You could have said, well, give me an example of a genus that has 
> apparently evolved.
To me, that is a meaningless question, since the rank of genus is (IMO) 
in practice arbitrary.If you circumscribe non-arbitrary genera, then 
huzzah. I'd be interested to know how you can repair the genera 
circumscribed by others in order to make them scientifically meaningful. 
If you can explain that, then perhaps we can move on to your question.

--
Curtis Clark
Cal Poly Pomona