[Taxacom] Interesting use of terms

[Kenneth Kinman]

Hi Richard,  
        Well, I think there are plenty of cases where skepticism is
warranted in taxonomy and systematics, but it is sadly lacking or far
too rare.                                      
       What about the nature of early arthropods.  One of the
"Protarthropoda" were the pentastomids (tongue worms) which now seem to
be close to argulid (branchiuran) crustaceans.  THEREFORE, why should
biologists be resistant to suggestions that tardigrades (supposedly
"protarthropods") or nematodes, or any other ecdysozoans, could also
(likewise) be derived crustaceans?         
       It has long seemed to me that the crustaceans are not only
paraphyletic with resepct to hexapods and pentastomids, but perhaps to
other ecdysozoan "phyla" as well.  Of course, if you choose the wrong
out group, molecular (even whole genome) data will suck one into an
"Intellectual Black Hole".         
        So I would caution all to beware of oversimplistic hypotheses
(such as Lophotrochozoa is holophyletic with respect to Ecdysozoa, or
Archaebacteria/Archaea are "archaic" with respect to Eubacteria).  MOST
IMPORTANTLY, never use ANY member of Metabacteria (a.k.a.
Archaebacteria/Archaea)  as outgroup to Eubacteria.  It not only screws
up prokaryotic phylogenies, but no doubt the entire Tree of Life.      
           -----------Ken Kinman                                
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Richard Zander wrote:
     Given the many isolated intraspecific molecular lineages that are
reported in the literature, and the many long-extant living fossils that
don't seem to have speciated, Mesibov is right that there needs to be
some skepticism about this paper. 
But wouldn't it be nice to believe this works? To trust that well-funded
scientists can't fool themselves? I just got a nice book called
Believing Bullshit: How Not to get Sucked into an Intellectual Black
Hole, by philosopher Stephen Law. It's mainly about the usual and easily
lambasted culprits, cults and the like, but don't we all skirt the Abyss
at times? Wouldn't some clear and logical guidelines be of day-to-day
value to all of us?