[Taxacom] Hijacking paraphyletic taxon names (but thankfully not Crustacea)

Sat Feb 10 14:57:34 CST 2018

Hi Stephen,

       That's the point.  We haven't changed the meaning of crustaceans or taxon Crustacea.  If strict cladists don't like taxon Crustacea because it is paraphyletic, they don't have to use it.

       If the same had been done (creating a new clade name) for Sarcoptergyii plus Tetrapoda, I wouldn't give strict cladists such a hard time.  More importantly, they definitely should have created a new name for the clade containing dinosaurs plus birds, instead of hijacking the name Dinosauria.

                        ---------------Ken

________________________________
From: Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>
Sent: Saturday, February 10, 2018 2:41 PM
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu; Kenneth Kinman
Subject: Re: Hijacking paraphyletic taxon names (but thankfully not Crustacea)

On a more serious note, if insects are descendants of crustaceans, then although Parcrustacea saves insects from being crustaceans, what happens to the paraphyletic Crustacea? Have we lost crustaceans?

--------------------------------------------
On Sun, 11/2/18, Kenneth Kinman <kinman at hotmail.com> wrote:

 Subject: Hijacking paraphyletic taxon names (but thankfully not Crustacea)
 To: "taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu" <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>, "Stephen Thorpe" <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>
 Received: Sunday, 11 February, 2018, 9:34 AM

 Hi all,
        We
 probably wouldn't be having a debate about paraphyletic
 taxa if the strict cladists hadn't hijacked the names of
 major paraphyletic taxa, especially those with large
 exgroups.  Instead of creating a new clade
  name, Sarcopterygii was hijacked and a huge exgroup (all
 the tetrapods) shoved into it.  It completely changed the
 meaning of Sarcopterygii.  Same with Reptilia and
 Dinosauria (shoving all the birds into them).  If they
 wanted a clade uniting dinosaurs and
  birds, they should have come up with a new name instead of
 greatly changing the meaning of taxon Dinosauria.

        Luckily
 this was done in one major case.  The clade name
 Pancrustacea was created for crustaceans and their hexapod
 descendants.  The name Crustacea wasn't hijacked.
 Thank goodness.

  ---------------Ken

 From: Stephen Thorpe
 <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>

 Sent: Friday, February 9, 2018 10:53 PM

 To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu; Kenneth Kinman

 Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Insects are crustacean
 descendants vs. "insects ARE crustaceans"

 Ken,

 I think the cladist mind thinks that a taxon includes all
 its decendants, so whatever name applies to the taxon also
 applies to all its decendants. So, tetrapods are
 Sarcopterygia/sarcopterygians. Sort of makes sense.
 Tetrapods are also animals, eukaryotes,
  etc.

 Stephen

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

 On Sat, 10/2/18, Kenneth Kinman <kinman at hotmail.com>
 wrote:

  Subject: [Taxacom] Insects are crustacean descendants vs.
 "insects ARE  crustaceans"

  To: "taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu"
 <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>

  Received: Saturday, 10 February, 2018, 4:10 PM

  Hi all,

  The present discussion about paraphyly reminds me of
 strict

  cladists insisting that "birds ARE
 dinosaurs",

  rather than "birds are dinosaur descendants".
 I

  suppose they might think that they are preparing the
 next

  generation of young dinosaur lovers to support strict

  cladists and perhaps even become future strict
 cladists.

        But not all dinosaur

  researchers think that this is a good idea.  In his
 paper

  Origin of Birds: The Final Solution? (American
 Zoologist:

  Vol. 40, No. 4, pp. 504-512), Peter Dodson says:
 "For

  example, the word dinosaur was not previously problematic
 -

  it was universally understood. Within cladistics it has
 now

  been redefined to include birds ... and then a new and

  cumbersome phrase, non-avian dinosaur, has been
 substituted.

  This is not progress; this is semantic obfuscation not

  enlightened communication."

         I agree that it is semantic

  obfuscation.  Saying "Birds are dinosaurs"

  (instead of birds are dinosaur descendants) is  like
 saying

  "Tetrapods are sarcopterygian fish" (instead
 of

  Tetrapods are descendants of sarcopterygian fish).  Or
 how

  about "Insects are crustaceans", rather than

  "Insects are crustacean descendants."

         In all these cases,

  you would be trying to force a well-known exgroup taxon
 back

  into its mother taxon.  In other words, it is a war
 against

  paraphyletic taxa which would become glaringly absurd
 if

  applied across the board.  How about "Vertebrates
 are

  invertebrates" instead of "Vertebrates are

  invertebrate descendants"?

            -----------------Ken Kinman

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