[Taxacom] RES: south-west Australia

Fri Jun 24 19:58:42 CDT 2011

Hi Richard,

You wrote that 'a species is still defined most generally as the basic unit of taxonomy'. This is true in the Mayrian, antidarwinian synthesis. In Darwin and in panbiogeography the species is not special and the basic unit is the character or, at the taxonomic level, the taxon (whatever its rank). 
   You also wrote: 'Suggesting that one should follow one or the other [biological species concept or darwinian/panbiogeographic species concept] is not helpful since (1) different species concepts can be most effectively used for different groups (paraconsistency)...'. Exactly: this is the panbiogeographic species concept - the 'species' in different groups are not necessarily equivalent in their branch length or degree of reproductive isolation.

Michael Heads

Wellington, New Zealand.

My papers on biogeography are at: http://tiny.cc/RiUE0

--- On Sat, 25/6/11, Richard Zander <Richard.Zander at mobot.org> wrote:

From: Richard Zander <Richard.Zander at mobot.org>
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] RES: south-west Australia
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Received: Saturday, 25 June, 2011, 1:36 AM

Well, sure, usage matters, but a species is still defined most generally as the basic unit of taxonomy. This extra baggage refers to either process-based theories, e.g. biological species concept, or the panbiogeography concept which is vaguely defined as some step in a ranking. Suggesting that one should follow one or the other is not helpful since (1) different species concepts can be most effectively used for different groups (paraconsistency), (2) sometimes just "basic unit of taxonomy" is good enough for a helpful contribution to science. 

"Real"? What is real? Genera are not real? There are theoretic explanations that describe their evolving, so evolution is not a criterion. I think there is a lot of rejection of theoretic realities going on nowadays, and I don't mean alternate realities. 

_______________________
Richard H. Zander
Missouri Botanical Garden
PO Box 299
St. Louis, MO 63166 U.S.A.
richard.zander at mobot.org

________________________________

From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu on behalf of Michael Heads
Sent: Fri 6/24/2011 12:44 AM
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] RES: south-west Australia

Hi Curtis,

Panbiogeography has developed many new or unusual concepts for old ideas and terms, e.g. evolution, origin, species, dispersal, ancestor etc. These new concepts are clarified in the panbiogeographic literature, and may often be confusing if you haven't read it. For example, the concept 'species', as used by many biologists, is the 'absolute' concept of Mayr - species are real, subgenera and subspecies are not. 'The species' is the basis of evolutionary theory, biodiversity assesment and so on. Panbiogeography instead used the Darwinian, relativistic concept -  a species is not special, and is just the unit between subspecies and subgenera. Geneticists who work on speciation are now starting to use this and to question why Mayr etc. were so antidarwinian (see the outstanding article: Mallet, J. 2010. Why was Darwin's view of species rejected by twentieth century biologists? Biol. Philos. 25: 497).

Michael   

Wellington, New Zealand.

My papers on biogeography are at: http://tiny.cc/RiUE0

--- On Fri, 24/6/11, Curtis Clark <lists at curtisclark.org> wrote:

From: Curtis Clark <lists at curtisclark.org>
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] RES: south-west Australia
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu, Robinwbruce at aol.com, jgrehan at sciencebuff.org
Received: Friday, 24 June, 2011, 4:58 PM

On 6/22/2011 9:35 PM, Michael Heads wrote:
> You can use it in any of the standard ways and people will know what you mean from the context.
How did Robin mean it? How did John mean "null hypothesis"?

Panbiogeography can only seem esoteric, and subject to marginalization,
if it uses technical terms commonly used by other biologists, but with
different meanings, and without the differences being clarified. It's
easy for the rest of us to assume "track", for example, to be a
specialized term in panbiogeography, since it has a multiplicity of
meanings in standard English, but most of us with a biometrics
background would assume we know what "degrees of freedom" and "null
hypothesis" mean, and would only be puzzled, and I admit put off, by
what would seem to be redefinitions.

--
--
Curtis Clark
Cal Poly Pomona

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