[Taxacom] Biodiversity questions: Classifications

Tue Oct 8 09:48:42 CDT 2013

Strangely I do not think our views are that different; so my comments below are not really directed at you.

As a taxonomist, I live quite comfortably in two paradigms. In one I see no species only evolving metapopulations of organisms changing overtime and space - when I walk through the African bush this is what I perceive all around me and in the data I collect from it. However, from a practical point of view I also work in a paradigm of nested classes from which I can extract useful information. Being able to identify families, genera and "species" (which I see as just convenient handles for carry hypotheses and data/information) is very useful. I used such a system just a few weeks ago to help a doctor identify a plant that had poisoned two children, who he was then able to successfully treat once he knew the poison involved. This is why I find it hard to understand why many taxonomists insist on "there can be only one" (sadly mostly the Cladists - although I am predominantly one myself). Intellegent and informed people I believe are capable of living simultaneously in both a classificatory world of monophyly and paraphyly. Also, given that evolution can be so complex and the span of time over which organisms have existed (can any of us truly claim to understand the magnitude and implications of even just a million years?) I believe that cladograms can only be considered extremely crude approximations to what really happened. However, in an uncertain universe, empirical science remains the best tool we have at our disposal and in understanding evolution cladistics remains the best tool for establishing evolutionary histories. As interesting and revealing as they are, nonetheless, we need to acknowledge the uncertainty of these and the fact that this uncertainty increases as we try and look back into deep-time. Probably something funders of projects do not want to hear.

Ah yes Hypatia - a light in dark times - and who died a horrible death just because she was a scientist-philosopher and a woman. A pity her ethos, as you outline below, was lost at Melbourne :)  Sorry could resist that. Taxacomers can slap me on the hand if they want to.

Regards
Ashley

From: Richard Zander [mailto:Richard.Zander at mobot.org]
Sent: 08 October 2013 00:10
To: Ashley Nicholas; Fred Schueler
Cc: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: RE: [Taxacom] Biodiversity questions: Classifications

Ashley:

Subjective? No so. I am simply recognizing differing amounts of uncertainty. If modern systematics makes a big deal of Bayesian analysis (a good thing), then degree of credibility is important, not proof of true things. Empiricial sciences are self-policing in the marketplace of reason. "Repeatable" and "consistent" are always couched in terms of probability or with the addition of error estimates, unless one reads the 19th Century literature only. Sasquatch passes lots of tests according to some minority, a measure of credibility or dubiety. I think you promote "truth" at the beginning of your essay, yet switch to a reasonable position at the end.

Using a wrong method to get a sufficiently right answer is okay. One uses Euclidian geometry to build a house or drive a car, unconcerned with relativistic effects. One rejoices in just rubbing along with merely human approximations and models of the fuzzy and seemingly contradictory things "out there." Euclidian geometry is not superstition, neither are subjective priors if done as the first part of a multiple set of empirical priors.

According to the Web, Hypatia was "the real, historical woman should be remembered as a resident of Alexandria, a mathematician, a philosopher, a teacher, and a woman characterized by her sophrosyne-"a model of ethical courage, righteousness, veracity, civic devotion, and intellectual prowess."" A good model for anyone.

____________________________

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

Evol. Syst.: http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/resbot/EvSy/Intro.htm

UPS and FedExpr -  MBG, 4344 Shaw Blvd, St. Louis 63110 USA

-----Original Message-----
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu<mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Ashley Nicholas
Sent: Monday, October 07, 2013 10:16 AM
To: Richard Zander; Fred Schueler
Cc: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu<mailto:taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Biodiversity questions: Classifications

Richard you make some good points -- but I don't know if I am sold on the subjective pathway you suggest. To me magnetism is real (it can be observed and experimented with and therefore not semi-real). I have racked my brains to think of something that is semi-real. We certainly have speculations on things e.g. multiverses. I do not discount these but I do realise they are speculations (maybe good speculations and certainly highly fascinating speculations) to explain some of the things we are seeing and measuring. But I still treat them as speculation. The point of empirical sciences is that it is self-policing in that it can be repeated by anybody and shown to give repeatable and consistent results. Does the Sasquatch pass this test? Is there a type in a museum I can consult for myself?

Hypatia almost 2000 years ago said (and I paraphrase) "it is a terrible thing to teach superstition as the truth." and even Newton in his Principia refused to speculate on how gravity ("action-at-a-distance") actually works. Despite this Newton practised alchemy -- but he did have the sense to see that he should not to mix empirical science with his personal beliefs. I think most of us live in this duality but also realise that believing (in whatever) does not make it a fact; be it Sasquatch or in our part of the world a Tikoloshe.

To some extent empirical science is an ideal -- but one that has reaped great benefits for humans. Yes there are many things out there we do not understand and can not yet explain -- but hopefully we will in time produce the machines and instruments we need to extend our ability to collect data (not facts).

I also use the term "facts' but do so uneasily as this suggest "the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth". However, there is evidence that our universe is not only relative but also interactive and so ambivalent. You can ask light if it is a wav or a particle and it will tell you what you want to hear based on your experiment. As a result, like Popper and many before I believe all knowledge to be to some extent uncertain. I have no problem living in an uncertain universe, although I know human nature (for survival purposes) opts for certainty.

Thanks for an interesting debate.

Ashley

________________________________________

From: Richard Zander [Richard.Zander at mobot.org]

Sent: 05 October 2013 20:18

To: Ashley Nicholas; Fred Schueler

Cc: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu<mailto:taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>

Subject: RE: [Taxacom] Biodiversity questions: Classifications

For many people sasquatch exists. They spend money mounting expeditions

to find him/her. They act on their belief.

Empirical data is facts. Facts are well-documented observations. Some

figure the sasquatch is well-documented and thus a fact. I think there

is a scientific name for him or her.

The only fact a scientist should accept absolutely is the chair he/she

is sitting in and the certainty of death and taxes. Anything else not in

the room with him/her needs to be dealt with in varying degrees of

credibility or dubiety. Concepts and hypotheses are quite as real as the

sasquatch when you act on them. Fields like magnetism can be measured

and described with equations but nobody knows what magnetism actually

is. Us scientists deal with lots of semi-real things quite effectively.

Empiricism/positivism is not dead, no, but an ideal. A real one.

____________________________

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

Framework: http://tinyurl.com/ltd66dw

UPS and FedExpr -  MBG, 4344 Shaw Blvd, St. Louis 63110 USA

-----Original Message-----

From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu<mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>

[mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Ashley Nicholas

Sent: Saturday, October 05, 2013 1:05 PM

To: Fred Schueler

Cc: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu<mailto:taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>

Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Biodiversity questions: Classifications

I disagree with this what is being said here. Only

objects/forces/phenomena that can be experimented on or objectively

observed really exist. Anything we abstract fro this through the

collection of data/information is a concept or a hypothesis and not

real. A flash about the benzene ring must have come from empirically

collected data. Taxonomy cannot be exempt from this process if it is

then it is not empirical science it is guessing!

Ashley

________________________________________

From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu<mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>

[taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] on behalf of Fred Schueler

[bckcdb at istar.ca]

Sent: 05 October 2013 03:48

Cc: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu<mailto:taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>

Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Biodiversity questions: Classifications

On 10/4/2013 10:26 AM, Dan Lahr wrote:

> Ha, I was not aware that he acknowledged that.

* well, not in those words - but he certainly acknowledged that a

falsifiable hypothesis could come from anywhere - and "anywhere"

includes baconian induction. In a sense, any hypothesis arises as an

idea about existing data, whether it comes as a flash about a benzene

ring, or only after poring over decades of correlation between weather

data and road-crossing dates.

fred.

===============================================

>

> So it is in fact the wide *perception* of popperian science that

defines

> science as only the last part of that sentence, not Popper himself...

>

> thanks for pointing it out FRed.

>

>

> On Fri, Oct 4, 2013 at 10:09 AM, Fred Schueler <bckcdb at istar.ca

> <mailto:bckcdb at istar.ca>> wrote:

>

>     On 10/4/2013 9:00 AM, Dan Lahr wrote:

>

>      > Incidently, I tend think that applying the popperian definition

>     of science

>      > to taxonomy, as you have indicated, is a bit of trying to fit a

>     square peg

>      > in a round hole.  Popper's definition is too restrictive:

exploratory

>      > science is also part of science!  HOw would we come to

hypothesis

>     if we

>      > don't know what objects can be hypothesizable subjects?

>

>     * an interesting point - the popperian hypothesis is that "it will

be

>     only through exploratory data collection and baconian induction

that it

>     will be possible to form a falsifiable hypothesis about this

subject."

>     In my experience, this hypothesis is often corroborated.

>

>     fred.

>     ------------------------------------------------------------

>                Frederick W. Schueler & Aleta Karstad

>     Bishops Mills Natural History Centre -

http://pinicola.ca/bmnhc.htm

>     Mudpuppy Night in Oxford Mills - http://pinicola.ca/mudpup1.htm

>     Daily Paintings - http://karstaddailypaintings.blogspot.com/

>                RR#2 Bishops Mills, Ontario, Canada K0G 1T0

>         on the Smiths Falls Limestone Plain 44* 52'N 75* 42'W

>     (613)258-3107 <tel:%28613%29258-3107> <bckcdb at istar.ca

>     <http://istar.ca>> http://pinicola.ca/

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> --

> ___________________

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> Assist. Prof., Dept of Zoology,

> Univ. of Sao Paulo, Brazil

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--

------------------------------------------------------------

          Frederick W. Schueler & Aleta Karstad

Bishops Mills Natural History Centre - http://pinicola.ca/bmnhc.htm

Mudpuppy Night in Oxford Mills - http://pinicola.ca/mudpup1.htm

Daily Paintings - http://karstaddailypaintings.blogspot.com/

          RR#2 Bishops Mills, Ontario, Canada K0G 1T0

   on the Smiths Falls Limestone Plain 44* 52'N 75* 42'W

    (613)258-3107 <bckcdb at istar.ca> http://pinicola.ca/

------------------------------------------------------------

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