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Standardization and Re: bats & battalions (+ pentastomids & marsupials)



----- Original Message -----
From: "Ken Kinman" <kinman@hotmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2001 4:29 AM


>       I put vestimentiferans (afrenulate beardworms) in Phylum Pogonophora
> (along with the frenulate beardworms), but more recent evidence indicates
> that both classes of beardworms should actually be placed with the annelid
> classes [...].

Indeed. What I've seen recently is IIRC

Annelida
  |--Polychaeta (maybe paraphyletic)
  |    |===whatnot
  |    `--Pogonophora
  |          |--forgot the name for P. sensu stricto
  |          `--Vestimentifera
  `--Clitellata

Why should we let taxonomy force us to abandon the useful and widely used
names Vestimentifera and Pogonophora while both are holophyletic, only
because they are members of Annelida?

> But I still code those
> nine marsupial orders together as a single "marsupial" clade.

So you abandon "intermediate ranks" to such a degree that you even have to
ignore the name Marsupialia. :.-( IMHO you really suffer from that.

> P.S.  Being human constructs, all classifications are to some extent
> arbitrary and subjective (even strictly cladistic ones).

Yeah, sure.
(Of course, _in theory_ phylogenetic taxonomy _can_, like all science,
become objective save for the definitions, while the systems of Linné,
Kinman, Benton etc. can't.)

> My goal is to
> minimize arbitrariness as much as I can,

This is also the goal of phylogenetic taxonomy, but the latter uses the
_scientific method_ for it. One reason I prefer it.

> A cladisto-eclectic middle ground is therefore inevitable,

Or not. It hasn't come since 1994. We'll see :-)

-----------------------------
Sorry for my previous 13 KB post.
-----------------------------
Suggestion for stem-groupers like HP Dinogeorge: Regarding Panarthropoda
(which includes, according to those who use it, everything around
Arthropoda, such as water bears and onychophores), what about sticking pan-
in front of your stem groups, which are really easy to define, and using the
traditional names (Aves, Crocodi/ylia....) for something else? Panornithes
("all birds"), Pancrocodilia ("all crocs"), Panarchosauria, Panamniota...?
Would end many quarrels with others, wouldn't it? And maybe something like
neo- for crown groups? (Okay, Neosauropoda isn't exactly...) I really agree
standardization isn't a bad thing :-P