Re: Apomorphy-based definitions

["Jaime A. Headden" <qilongia@yahoo.com>]

Nick Pharris (NJPharris@aol.com) wrote:

<...or maybe naming species is pointless, if our ultimate goal is
reconstructing the evolutionary history of individuals (the only truly
non-arbitrary units in evolutionary biology--and that only in organisms
incapable of asexual reproduction!)>

  Or maybe individuals as we conceive of them are not single upon their
own feet, but comprised again each of billions of individuals,
mitochondria and so forth, which under the same analysis is a combination
of two different types of life. We are a hodge podge in all our
brilliance. One could go to pure science and study only cellular
evolution. When analyses study mitochondrial DNA, they are studying the
genetic make-up of mitochondria, not that of the host cell. Theoretically,
development of the mitochondria parallels _exactly_ that of the host, but
this has never been tested since every molecular analysis has a few holes
in itself, as well, especially in the assumption of pure transformation.
These organisms are so simple, yet make up complex multitudes that we call
Harold, Magda, and Josef.

  At some point, you're gonna want to take an extreme just to clarify what
you want your phylogeny to do. When you want a pure chart of relationships
of bymbiotic mitochondria, do the molecular analysis that includes them.
if you want to study population evolution, you can work with a specified
level of interrelatedness that you will assume is fully indepedant of
another, and name that a "species." Henceforth, all groupings of species
and groupings of those are called taxa, and you can work that way. Or you
can assume that level of development from nearest relative can be a marker
for terms of separation, and call those ranks, but at that point you loose
all abaility to test relatedness ... just distinction.

  Define what you want, test it that way. 'Sall I can say...

=====
Jaime A. Headden

  Little steps are often the hardest to take.  We are too used to making leaps 
in the face of adversity, that a simple skip is so hard to do.  We should all 
learn to walk soft, walk small, see the world around us rather than zoom by it.

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