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Date: Sun, 02 Feb 2003 21:25:27 -0800 (PST)
From: "Jaime A. Headden" <qilongia@yahoo.com>
To: PhyloCode@ouvaxa.cats.ohiou.edu
Cc: mightyodinn@yahoo.com
Subject: Re: New Dinosauricon Taxon Pages: _Therizinosauria_
Mike Keesey (mightyodinn@yahoo.com) wrote: <So you would want to give every species a unique praenomen (based on a genus name, if available)? Then what's the point of having the second part of the name at all? And how are we supposed to name all those species which have never been type of their own genus?> Fossil taxa. Most of which have their own "genera" in monospecific structures. It solves two problems: 1) a, the "genus" has no meaning when compared to a species except its existence as a rank "higher" than a Linnaean species, and b, since a rank has no meaning, and no one has yet, to my knowledge, been able to explain what a rank (or even a genus) is -- removal of both benefits taxonomy in general; 2) problems with Cantino et al., which would reduce all species to a single name, either the first or second names (this would also require redundant species names to be changed, which is a larger problem than I propose to solve, or resolve all "genera" names, which is the same as I propose, only mine retains the additional data (see Flynn et al.)), whereas Linnaean taxonomy serves to perpetuate (1) under the guise of serving the human tendency to categorize, however much is departs from even a semblance of relationship, instead of mandatory relationships and structures (Linnaean taxonomy forces a structure into taxa that did not have one, in the sense that Linné conceived of). This also removes the subjectivity inherent in Linnaean taxonomy such as the relationship of individual taxa to one another. Though complexly involved (but dealt with by both Lizevey and Sibley & Alquist for bird "orders"), it is far from unwieldy or infeasible, and is being shown to be workable given different groups, such as ongoing work with turtles, crocodylians, lizards, amphibians, basal tetrapods, basal gnathostomes and fish-like animals, and in this day and age possibly key, in dinosaurs and birds. Plants, with their different genetic constraints on inheritance and biological compatibility, may not be a good model for what is essentially an animal pioneering system of taxonomy. It is especially not feasible for bacteria and other "simple" organisms. <There are millions of named species, and far more currently unnamed. It does not seem possible to give each one a unique, pronounceable name. This is why I (at least provisionally) went with the option of including the citation as part of the full name.> Most, if not all, have nearly unique and pronouncable names. For beetles and ostracods, this gets excessively creative. Its not very hard to create taxonomy to suit this, and to compare that all taxa are, if nothing else, unique. The current systems and proposals I feel underestimate this variability. We are looking for a system that more closely approximate how most of us feel the actual animals relate to one another, not just their phylogeny, but concepts of speciation, identities of species, and so forth. This is not a criticism of the PhyloCode, but I feel PhyloCode may benefit from considering the initial footwork done by such as Brochu and Flynn. Cheers, Jaime A. Headden ===== Jaime A. Headden Little steps are often the hardest to take. We are too used to making leaps in the face of adversity, that a simple skip is so hard to do. We should all learn to walk soft, walk small, see the world around us rather than zoom by it. "Innocent, unbiased observation is a myth." --- P.B. Medawar (1969) __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com