Taxacom: On describing new taxa without using phylogenetics: some suggestions

Tue Oct 7 20:49:00 CDT 2025

Hi Guyoi,

Just a couple of off the cuff remarks as I have not read the paper in the
link and am not deep into the metaphysics of taxonomy or systematics (I
leave that to those who are).

"disagree with the statement....all new taxa that are proposed are
hypotheses that can be refuted and falsified" If a taxon is proposed based
on evidence of monophyly then it would seem that the monophyly claim is
potentially open to refutation and falsification.

"cladistics” is now often understood as referring specifically to
parsimony-based approaches" I believe this is a misunderstanding.
Cladistics, in its original form, was about grouping taxa according to
uniquely shared features. Parisony was just one of many potential
algorithms for making a judgement about how to balance out conflicting
relationships indicated by different uniquely shared features. I know of
some cladists who are not enamoured with standard parsimony methods (e.g.
PAUP). I am not sure that molecular methods are 'cladistic' in the original
sense, especially if uniquely shared molecular characters are only defined
after the tree is selected.

"as fossil taxa can indeed be placed within a phylogenetic framework using
morphological characters." Problem occurs when clades are supported by
molecular features that are not known for fossils. For example,
molecular folk argue for a human-chimp sister group, in which case there is
no evidence for fossils such as Australopiths being placed within a
human-chimp clade. Ironically there is evidence to place them in a
human-orangutan clade. In another irony, there was a prominent
paleoanthropologist, Pilbeam, who dismissed morphology in favor of
molecules because he made a mistake with one of his fossil assignments, but
then later went on to present himself as an authority on what fossils were
hominids (i.e. within the human lineage). He had his cake and ate it too.

As for having a phylogeny, whether morphological or molecular, not always
possible.  For example, in my group of study (Hepialidae), there are two
genera in S Africa, Eudalaca and Gorgopis, for which neither have any
identifiable autapomorphy. Probably they are a mix, and maybe in the future
prove to be a single taxon, or two or more taxa under a different
arrangement. It is possible to find new species and see that they fall
within one or other genus as currently circumscribed by currently named
species, and in one of them, to compare with the type species as a
reference point. Under this circumstance I will make the best argument
possible for assigning a new species to one or other genus and leave it to
future research to conform or falsify my current choice. To me this is
better than not describing and naming these entities at all just because
there is no resolved phylogeny.

Just my two cents worth, and mostly out of ignorance no doubt.

Cheers, John

On Tue, Oct 7, 2025 at 1:53 AM Lücking, Robert via Taxacom <
taxacom at lists.ku.edu> wrote:

> Dear Guoyi,
>
> your point is well founded. The confusion may be in the term
> "phylogenetics". This term relates to the establishment of genealogies,
> regardless of the methods used. What you refer to is the use of
> quantitative methods, even when only morphological data are available. I
> believe the term is then "cladistics", which came long after the use of
> "phylogenetics". There are also other quantitative methods, including an
> array of multivariate analyses and phenotype-based phylogenetic binning
> (which was precisely designed for fossils but can be used for any kind of
> phenotype data).
>
> Regards
> Robert
>
>
> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: Taxacom <taxacom-bounces at lists.ku.edu> Im Auftrag von Kuoi Zhang via
> Taxacom
> Gesendet: Dienstag, 7. Oktober 2025 03:52
> An: Taxacom (taxacom at lists.ku.edu) <taxacom at lists.ku.edu>
> Betreff: Taxacom: On describing new taxa without using phylogenetics: some
> suggestions
>
> Zhang G, Feng Q. 2025. Why we should not describe new taxa without using
> phylogenetics. Comment on Chen et al. (2025). Journal of Natural History
> 59(37-40): 2355-2359.
> https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdoi.org%2F10.1080%2F00222933.2025.2564347&data=05%7C02%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7C15515613bdf44e12600608de060cf0c3%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C638954849830998302%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=jAJJ5XZL28WaIcLFEV0U%2ByUxObTKWwB%2BzuL9f%2F4HVNc%3D&reserved=0
>
> pdf available at
> https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.researchgate.net%2Fpublication%2F396239492_Why_we_should_not_describe_new_taxa_without_using_phylogenetics_Comment_on_Chen_et_al_2025&data=05%7C02%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7C15515613bdf44e12600608de060cf0c3%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C638954849831017598%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=Y7re0ye2AGV1dMjfRQy8Umbp4zF%2F3zhY8AbIBN9gAIM%3D&reserved=0
> <
> https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.researchgate.net%2Fpublication%2F396239492_Why_we_should_not_describe_new_taxa_without_using_phylogenetics_Comment_on_Chen_et_al_2025%3F_sg%255B0%255D%3DhqDEV92UeyWCOKjJ17ed1jbtmejHJ9MvHWGQaWxxhz91RNCiYocNZhGRj2BRWUdscZ9UF6XUnkfkZoKRIVT8RXi0FUkNPb4Rchgejiww.9eeTE4s8-qcLQo1Mb6y-bvvUmMI_J0sUIayNKpVofl3fGnDJw9mz4G9HP665eLzB2opS-IMV26GiwEDPg5TCgA%26_tp%3DeyJjb250ZXh0Ijp7ImZpcnN0UGFnZSI6InByb2ZpbGUiLCJwYWdlIjoicHJvZmlsZSIsInBvc2l0aW9uIjoicGFnZUNvbnRlbnQifX0&data=05%7C02%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7C15515613bdf44e12600608de060cf0c3%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C638954849831031825%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=pdwmQ6eLSXvrWkr4gR514UD2KXMZ8eDxTdZ3Gfqtgc4%3D&reserved=0
> >
>
> Under the pressure of an overwhelming number of problematic new taxa, we
> call for taxonomists to incorporate phylogenetic methods and reasoning into
> their taxonomic work. I understand that many may disagree, but please allow
> me to explain.
>
> This paper briefly summarizes why taxonomy is a science, how taxonomy can
> be a science, how the ideas and methods of Kant, Darwin, Hennig, and Popper
> have influenced modern taxonomy, and why contemporary taxonomic research
> should not be separated from phylogenetics, both from the perspectives of
> history and the philosophy of science.
>
> To reach readers who may be new to phylogenetics, we must emphasize that
> phylogenetics is not limited to molecular data. Although I belong to
> Generation Z, I am aware that phylogenetics was first widely applied to
> morphological characters long before molecular sequencing became common.
> While morphology-based phylogenetics may suffer from homoplasy, something
> is still better than nothing. Simply describing morphological patterns
> without an explicit phylogenetic framework is less informative and less
> scientific than conducting morphology-based phylogenetic analyses.
>
> I am aware of previous arguments presented in the paper "Should we
> describe genera without molecular phylogenies?", whose author strongly
> opposed our views and directly criticized our commentary during the review
> process. That paper lacked a clear understanding of phylogenetics based on
> morphological data, as also revealed during the review process of our own
> manuscript. The author wrote, "not to mention fossil taxa, which also need
> to be placed in the system obviously without molecular support." I believe
> most paleontologists would disagree with this statement, as fossil taxa can
> indeed be placed within a phylogenetic framework using morphological
> characters.
>
> In response to claims such as "we should invest more trust in the
> taxonomic evaluations of the decreasing number of taxonomists and allow
> more freedom for morphology-based grouping," I would say: "Taxonomy should
> not become theology, where people are expected to believe without
> evidence." Furthermore, I personally disagree with the statement "taxonomy
> is a science, and all new taxa that are proposed are hypotheses that can be
> refuted and falsified." A taxon described solely by a fixed morphological
> pattern, as the author often does, cannot truly be falsified, since any
> additional variation can easily be reinterpreted as representing a new
> taxon. Such direct assertions are not falsifiable, much like religious
> doctrines. When synonyms or new taxonomic acts are later proposed, it
> merely reflects a redefinition of original taxa using new assertions or
> occasionally falsifiable methods.
>
> Ultimately, this commentary only represents our perspective on taxonomic
> practice. We are also happy to receive any constructive feedback.
>
> Best regards
> Guoyi
>
> Guoyi Zhang (she/her), MRes, PhD candidate Personal Web<
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> South Wales Australian Museum Research Institute Australian Museum
>
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