NANFA-L-- Re: phylocode

dlmcneely at lunet.edu
Thu, 27 Oct 2005 17:54:58 -0500

What'd I say? You found it weird. Actually, so do I, but the
proponents are some big names in systematics. I think their idea is
that the current heirarchical system forces us to see levels of
evolutionary complexity, when in fact, evolution is continuous. That's
the best I can make of it. But they see themselves as replacing a
system that is functionally more fit for typological systematics than
for more modern approaches.

Well, I said you might find it weird.

Dave

David L. McNeely, Ph.D., Professor of Biology
Langston University; P.O. Box 1500
Langston, OK 73050; email: dlmcneely at lunet.edu
telephone: (405) 466-6025; fax: 405) 466-3307
home page http://www.lunet.edu/mcneely/index.htm

"Where are we going?" "I don't know, are we there yet?"

----- Original Message -----
From: Mysteryman <bestfish at alaweb.com>
Date: Thursday, October 27, 2005 7:51 pm
Subject: Re: NANFA-L-- Moribund fish & Life Outside
> >Some systematicists advocate doing away with these levels, and
> adopting
> >something they call Phylocode. Look it up. You;ll either find
> it
> >weird, and not very useful, or you may say -- why hasn't this
> come up
> >before? .
> >
> >
>
> Well, I looked it up in some depth. I have to admit that I
> couldn't make
> much sense of it.
> The terminology wasn't the problem; it was the pointlessness. This
> phylocode is meant to replace heirarchial systemic ranks with some
> sort
> of ... well, I don't know how to describe it. It's as if the whole
> touch-feely political correctness craze has affected the
> systematists,
> and just like other proponents of such idiocy, they're perfectly
> content
> to make up whatever they need to make their models fit their
> views. No
> common ancestor for a group of possibly unrelated organisms
> sharing
> similar features which probably evolved separately anyway? No
> problem;
> they just invent one.
> I'm sure this makes sense to someone, but I don't get it.
> I tried to approach it with an open mind, but I guess I failed.
> Phylocode doesn't really accomplish anything, as far as I can see,
> that
> can't be done just as well with a simple tweak within the current
> system.It almost seems to me that it's all a big scam of a sort
> designed to
> ensure job security for systemists by giving them plenty of "busy
> work." If they got rid of Windows and replaced it with a
> completely new
> operating system that no one knew and didn't know how to integrate
> with
> their old systems, those few who understood those things would
> have
> plenty of lucrative work for a long time. I'm sure I'm being
> overly
> cynical, of course, and that Phylocode does address a few
> problems, but
> chucking the established system completely instead of just making
> a few
> corrections seems a silly notion to me.
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