Phylocode: Light, not heat

[Curtis Clark]

At 05:34 PM 3/7/02, Benjamin J. Burger wrote:
>  - rarely do we have all the descendants of a clade, plus we don't know what
>will evolve in the future.

Never has been a problem before....

>  - From the view of a paleontologist, phylocode must be linked to a time
>period.
>  - Most biologists use the present time period to define the ending point in
>the search for ALL descendants.
>  - But paleontologist will have to link phylocode to a time period, or have
>older fossil groups belong to
>    higher hierarchical groupings than younger fossils.

Considering that paleobotanists, at least, still have form and organ
genera, and that all paleontologists deal with phyletic "species", by
necessity if not by choice, I don't think the Linnaean system is any more
comfortable a home.

>2) Phylocode is highly unstable because every other week or so some yahoo
>publishes a new cladogram, which might change the current classification.
>Not a bad thing but who is going to try a keep track of all those new names.

Not too many non-North American non-botanists will recognize the names of
Greene or Rafinesque, nor non-mammalogists Merriam, but the issue of yahoos
and new names is not a recent one.


--
Curtis Clark                  http://www.csupomona.edu/~jcclark/
Biological Sciences Department             Voice: (909) 869-4062
California State Polytechnic University      FAX: (909) 869-4078
Pomona CA 91768-4032  USA                  jcclark at csupomona.edu