[Taxacom] Hijacking paraphyletic taxon names (but thankfully not Crustacea)
John Grehan
calabar.john at gmail.com
Sat Feb 10 15:26:52 CST 2018
Great apes and humans together have been called 'large bodied hominoids'
Within that group the taxon names depend on which alternative phylogeny is
used.
On Sat, Feb 10, 2018 at 4:17 PM, Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>
wrote:
> In the case of "great apes", the best solution, I suggest, is to consider
> Hominidae (=Pongidae) to be the family of "great apes and humans", rather
> than to consider humans to be "great apes" (or "great apes" to be humans!)
> There is something about this example, I'm not sure what, which makes it
> hard for even the most traditional taxonomist to justify retaining a
> paraphyletic Pongidae. Compare with retaining a paraphyletic Pisces or
> Reptilia.
>
> Stephen
>
> --------------------------------------------
> On Sun, 11/2/18, John Grehan <calabar.john at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Hijacking paraphyletic taxon names (but thankfully
> not Crustacea)
> To: "Kenneth Kinman" <kinman at hotmail.com>
> Cc: "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, 10:09 AM
>
> Thanks
> Ken,
> As with 'great
> apes' some paraphyletic names are useful, but just not a
> formal taxa.
> Which crustacea
> were grouped closer to insects?Curious as I haven't kept
> up with that.
> Names
> are a matter of personal choice. There's no
> authoritative body so no doubt there will always be
> disagreement over such matters and some choices will be
> popular than others for whatever reason. There is no
> absolute right or wrong about that.
> John
> On Sat, Feb 10, 2018 at
> 4:05 PM, Kenneth Kinman <kinman at hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Hi John,
> That's
> right. I actually find a lot of cladistic analyses very
> useful. But I don't like throwing the baby out with
> the bathwater (some of those paraphyletic taxa are quite
> useful). And I certainly don't like
> strict cladists hijacking the names of those paraphyletic
> taxa (I call that a mis-application of names).
>
> ----------Ken Kinman, a cladist (but not a strict
> cladist)
>
>
>
>
>
>
> From: John Grehan <calabar.john at gmail.com>
>
> Sent: Saturday, February 10, 2018 2:43 PM
>
> To: Kenneth Kinman
>
> Cc: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu;
> Stephen Thorpe
>
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Hijacking paraphyletic taxon
> names (but thankfully not Crustacea)
>
>
>
> So cladistics is not the problem after all.
> Just an objection for the application of names.
>
>
>
> Am I correct to understand that some crustaceans that
> were previously grouped under 'Crustacea' have
> turned out to be more closely related to insects than other
> crustacea?
>
>
>
> On
> Sat, Feb 10, 2018 at 3:34 PM, Kenneth Kinman
> <kinman at hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
> 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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