Taxacom: replacing un-sequenceable types (was Re: Minimalist revision of Mesochorus)

[John Grehan]

Couple of comments for reflection (or refutation):

"delimitation of diverging populations is inherently arbitrary" This is a
nice one for 'definitions' such as:

1. Determined by chance, whim, or impulse, and not by necessity, reason, or
principle.
2. Based on or subject to individual judgment or preference.
3. Relating to a decision made by a court or legislature that lacks a
grounding in law or fact.

I presume that it is No. 2 that people would have in mind. If so, I would
argue that the decision is not solely subject to individual judgement or
preference, but the presentation of information that
constitutes 'evidence'. If someone else accepts that evidence, then their
decision would seem to be subject to that evidence, not to the judgement or
preference of the person proposing the boundaries based on that evidence.
Perhaps I am splitting hairs.

"Once we can retrieve huge amounts of information (and all that matters) in
such an easy way, why shouldn't we take a full benefit of it?"

One key principle of molecular methods is that we can get 'huge amounts of
information' (or stuff). This is sort of the Law of Large Numbers
(previously used in morphological phenetics), that somehow if we have lots
and lots of 'data' it will somehow give a more and more accurate picture.
That somehow a vast number of base pairs will more likely tell use the
truth and a smaller (how small?) will more likely tell us a lie. Isn't
Nature so devious! Best to get some more high technology to subvert her
will.

Cheers, John



On Fri, Sep 1, 2023 at 9:07 PM Richard Pyle via Taxacom <
taxacom at lists.ku.edu> wrote:

> > I disagree with Marko that species delimitation is “arbitrary” — it’s
> not — it’s
> > just very difficult as you need a lot of genetic (and morphological)
> data to
> > demonstrate (or refute) gene flow and thus not objectively feasible for
> the vast
> > majority of species at this point.
>
> It's still arbitrary.  Even with perfect knowledge of rates of gene flow,
> it's still arbitrary how much gene flow (and over what time scale)
> represents the minimum necessary to represent conspecificity.
>
> Aloha,
> Rich
>
>
> Richard L. Pyle, PhD
> Senior Curator of Ichthyology | Director of XCoRE
> Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum
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