Understanding names (long)

["Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <th81@umail.umd.edu>]

At 11:26 PM 4/27/98 -0400, Jonathan Woolf wrote:

Well, if we can believe Woolf means what he says, we probably won't be
hearing from him anytime soon.  Just thought I'd clarify a few things for
the list as a whole.

>>  <<Names have meaning.  Names have power. Anyone who sees the _name_
>> Arctometatarsalia is going to automatically conclude that the name relates to
>> a feature common to all members of the group,>>
>
[This following bit is from Peter Bucholz]:

>> Not necisarily.  They will see it as a stem based clade thatt includes
>> Ornithomimus and all animals that share a more recent common ancestor with
>> Ornithomimus than with birds and that some members of that group will have
>> been characterised by possesing an arctometatarsus.  Hopefully these people
>> will have had the foresight to read Holtz 1994, 1995 and 1996 so they would
>> understand that.

Peter's last sentence here is very important, for those of you unfamiliar
with biological taxonomy (phylogenetic or otherwise): you've got to read the
papers, or at least secondary literature derived from them (textbooks,
encyclopedias, etc.).  In this particular case, Fastovsky & Weishampel's
dinosaur textbook, Benton's vertebrate paleontology textbook, and Currie &
Padian's and Glut's encyclopedia all discuss "Arctometatarsalia" to some
degree.  However, for all the details,  you have to consult the papers, just
as you would have to consult the original papers to find out all the details
on extinct amiid fish or on hyaenodont creodonts.

>THE NAME ALONE DOES NOT COMMUNICATE THAT DEFINITION.

Yep.  That's correct.  Taxonomy involves applying a single (double, in the
case of species) word name to a larger concept.  This should not surprise
anybody.

Does "Apodiformes" convey all the potential information on swift and
hummingbird anatomy, diagnosis, distribution, physiology, etc.?  No.  Does
it mean that all the members of the group lack feet (as the name states)?
No.  Is it a bad name?  No.

>THE NAME ALONE
>INDICATES THAT THE MEMBERS OF THE GROUP ALL HAVE THE ARCTOMETATARSUS AS A
>SYNAPOMORPHY.

At the time the name was composed, all the theropods known to have this
adaptation seemed to belong to this clade.  This hypothesis has been
falsified.  Big whoop.  The fact that chameleon's have a ridge on the back
of their skull doesn't mean that 'Marginocephalia' isn't a good or useful
name for the ceratopsian-pachycephalosaur group.

Anyone moderately familiar with organismal diversity is aware of the fact
that names cannot convey every last bit of information about the taxon they
are ascribed to, nor can namers predict future discoveries.  I don't see too
many students having a problem with the discovery that brachiopods, although
two-shelled, are not members of Bivalvia, once they move beyond the name and
into the details of the groups.

>Whatever nonsense and pseudoscientific doubletalk Holtz slipped by
>the censors in papers published in magazines to which I have no access does not
>matter. 

A) They are called "editors", not "censors", and I don't think Phil Currie
or Dave Weishampel or Don Prothero or Don Steinker would appreciate being
called "censors".
B) The process is called "peer review".  It is standard operating procedure
in a realm of activity known as "science".
C) You don't have access to Journal of Paleontology?  Try interlibrary loan,
or go to a university library (particularly one with a geology department)
or a museum library (ditto).  You can't do that?  Then learn to live with
disappointment: you are missing where paleontology really happens (i.e.,
journals in general, not J Paleontol. in particular).

Paleontology, like all science, is a publication-based process: you do an
analysis/ experiment/ whatever, you write up your results, you submit it to
review, you get it published, you have other people tear apart your work
(aka study your results), and you do the same to others.  This is how things
have been going since moveable type got to Europe.

>What matters is what a non-expert sees when s/he is reading about
>dinosaur groups.

No, and I am sorry to disappoint you (and perhaps others on this list).  It
does NOT matter what the non-expert sees when they see the name.  That
really doesn't matter.

I didn't name the group for dinofans.  I didn't name it for the listserve
(which didn't exist at the time).  I didn't name it for my nephews (ditto).
I didn't even name it for my wife.

It was named FOR experts: for other paleontologists.  Okay, so I was aware
that the group name had a better chance of being mentioned by
non-professionals than atopocharoid charophytes or polycopid ostracods, but
that wasn't a concern.

Just because we work on a taxon with more public appeal than the vast
majority of other (equally amazing) organisms on the planet doesn't mean
that dinosaur paleontologists are supposed to gear our work to a general
audience, despite what non-dinosaur paleontologist scientists think.

I am glad that there is a public interest in dinosaurs: it is a great way to
introduce people to evolutionary biology, historical geology, biomechanics,
paleoecology, and a whole host of other subjects.  However, as a
professional, my work is written for other professionals.  Why on earth
should it be otherwise?

>It's increasingly obvious that the resident monks will not permit
questioning of
>the Scripture of the Holy Clade, and that amateurs are not welcome to express
>opinions that dare to  go against the established wisdom.

I think that the general readership of the listserve can evaluate the
reality of the above sentence on their own (he said, diplomatically...).

Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
Vertebrate Paleontologist     Webpage: http://www.geol.umd.edu
Dept. of Geology              Email:th81@umail.umd.edu
University of Maryland        Phone:301-405-4084
College Park, MD  20742       Fax:  301-314-9661