[Previous by date - Re: Vermes]
[Next by date - Re: Vermes]
[Previous by subject - Re: Vermes]
[Next by subject - Re: Vermes]
Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2001 23:13:01 -0400 (EDT)
From: "T. Mike Keesey" <tmk@dinosauricon.com>
To: PhyloCode mailing list <phylocode@ouvaxa.cats.ohiou.edu>
Subject: Re: Vermes
On Sat, 21 Apr 2001, David Marjanovic wrote:
> Just out of curiosity, is somebody already working on the companion volume?
Yes; what are the plans for this? Hello? Is anybody here besides me and
David?
> > This relates to a current discussion on the PhyloCode Mailing List. It
> > seems like it might be a good idea to advance a Recommendation for not
> > converting paraphyletic taxa when there is a pre-existing name for the
> > monophyletic group (e.g., don't expand _Amphibia_ when _Tetrapoda_ is
> > available).
>
> Good idea.
Just thinking ... wouldn't this recommend that _Synapsida_ and
_Therapsida_ be called _Theropsida_ and _Neotheropsida_, respectively?
> > Maybe there should also be one against conversions that
> > drastically change membership. Not sure how this should be worded, though
> > -- tricky.
>
> Why? Juristic texts such as the ICZN are full of unclear words like
> "drastically".
Only in recommendations, I hope.
Of course, membership isn't really fixed into a phylogenetic definition,
except for the specifiers, and there are already rules and recommendations
to make sure that the specifiers, at least, are appropriate. But what if
someone defines a group so that it corresponds well to the traditional
usage under presently understood phylogenies, but then it changes
drastically under a new phylogeny? How would the proposed recommendation
work in that situation? Even worse, what if there were two main schools of
though on the phylogeny, wherein the clade matched the traditional taxon
unde one school of thinking, while it differed drastically according to
the other school? This is why I have doubts about such a recommendation.
_____________________________________________________________________________
T. MICHAEL KEESEY
Home Page <http://dinosauricon.com/keesey>
The Dinosauricon <http://dinosauricon.com>
personal <keesey@bigfoot.com> --> <tmk@dinosauricon.com>
Dinosauricon-related <dinosaur@dinosauricon.com>
AOL Instant Messenger <Ric Blayze>
ICQ <77314901>
Yahoo! Messenger <Mighty Odinn>