Re: SVP Preview

[npharris@umich.edu]

Quoting "T. Michael Keesey" <mightyodinn@yahoo.com>:

> --- npharris@umich.edu wrote:
> > Quoting Dinogeorge@aol.com:
> > 
> > > formation of names, you quickly lose track of where things are in the 
> > > hierarchy. Quick, without looking it up, tell me how these taxa might be
> 
> > > nested: Dinosauromorpha, Dinosauriformes, Dinosauria, Eudinosauria, 
> > > Dinosauroidea. Or Sauropoda, Eusauropoda, Macronaria, Titanosauriformes,
> 
> > > Titanosauromorpha, Somphospondyli, Titanosauria, Diplodociformes, 
> > > Diplodocimorpha. But given, e.g., Tyrannosauria, Tyrannosauroidea, 
> > > Tyrannosauridae, Tyrannosaurinae, Tyrannosaurini, and Tyrannosaurina,
> once 
> > > you know the endings convention, you can immediately see that those
> names
> > are
> > > in a nested sequence, rank or no rank.
> > 
> > Yes!  This is precisely a point I tried to make some months ago.  Why is it
> 
> > that (at least some) pracititioners of PT on this list don't see this as a
> > good thing?
> 
> Because it rests on the assumption that a given phylogeny is real.
> 
> Hierarchies may change, depending on the phylogeny. For example,
> _Maniraptora_
> may include _Tyrannoraptora_, or _Tyrannoraptora_ may include _Maniraptora_,
> but they will always refer to the same definitions.

I think this can be solved by using definitions with exclusive anchors.

--Nick P.