[Taxacom] what pop start can do... could taxonomists as well... Copyright

[Jim Croft]

Good observation - but I would like to think we do the job a bit
better than the music industry...  I do not believe it is possible to
come up with a truly meaningful classification of music - we are
talking multivariate ordination of attributes rather than a hierarchy
of descent.  Sure, we can define clouds of like and even come up
plausible lineage or hierarchy but you will have to wear all the
'fusion' examples and artists who just refuse to fit.

In some respects this is similar to our parallel thread on race and
taxonomy (the astute observer will note this is a blatant
demonstration that email threads can not be classified either despite
apparent linear descent).

It seems to be a natural human condition to divide things into
mutually exclusive groups.  And then arrange the groups in groups of
like groups.  Even if it makes no sense to do so.  Our biological
taxonomy is essentially hierarchical and the codes are there to ensure
this (it seems to work most of the time) and although we can impose
similar arrangements on variable things like music and humans, the
blends and things that don't fit are going to make it not very
rigorous and a pretty unsatisfactory exercise for all involved.  That
is not to say that there are not statistically significant
recognizable phenological clusters with a  genetic basis in the human
mix - only that you can not use a binary chop to sort a multivariate
problem.

As far as any biological meaning of 'race' goes, this is something
that can not really be progressed until we have settle on a definition
of the the word 'race'.  It we choose a biological definition we can
then provide a biological explanation; if we choose a social or
ideological one, we can't.  As biologists we naturally prefer to look
at things biologically.  It is pretty neat that a pair of Inuit can
only produce more Inuit and not a Kalahari San but an Inuit and a San
can produce something that is at the same time neither Inuit nor San
and both Inuit and San.  Of course this only works because there are
clusters of people we can broadly recognize as San and clusters we can
broadly recognize as Inuit.  While the mechanisms at play might seem
obvious and biological, the variation and gene flow is essentially
clinal I do not think our current models of taxonomy have a lot to
offer here.

jim

p.s.  There are only two kinds of people in the world - those who
believe there are two kinds of people in the world - and those who
don't...  :)

On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 12:27 AM, Jurriaan de Vos
<jurriaan.devos at systbot.uzh.ch> wrote:
> There is another connection between the music world and the taxonomic world
> - that is the endless discussions on how to define and group the entities of
> study. In fact, classifying any given band into an existing genre - or
> erecting a new genre if it is really new music - is a truely taxonomical
> endeavour...
>
> Jurriaan
>

-- 
_________________
Jim Croft ~ jim.croft at gmail.com ~ +61-2-62509499

"Words, as is well known, are the great foes of reality."
- Joseph Conrad, author (1857-1924)