Re: Coelurosaur phylogeny

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

Mickey Mortimer (mickey_mortimer111@msn.com) wrote:

<But that's a personal opinion, not a rule.  Not yet anyway.  Once January
1, 200n rolls around, I'll put Enigmosauria in quotation marks too
(assuming no one properly defines it by then, which someone should, cough,
cough).  But until then, we're free to use whichever clades we wish
without worrying about whether they are valid or not.>

  One is free to use or not use any name, definition, diagnosis, or
content of any taxon, or even any system to method of deriving
relationships, theories on taxa, etc., as a matter of choice. However, if
one so chooses, one is outre and no longer working in the system one
professes to advocate. It becomes a "what feels good to me" system and
only panders to ego. I won't use *Velociraptor* but rather *Googoo*
because I don't like -raptor names; the new name is not a -raptor name, as
is obvious. This method plays right into the cited statement, and is the
major reason (lack of consistency and applicability between works) that
the majority, if not ALL taxonomists, adopt these "rules" and
"recommendations." If one chooses to advocate a particular system, say
Phylogenetic taxonomy or the rules of reflecting family-level taxa or
lower taxa of the ICZN, one should not then decided as a hypocrite to not
do so further. One goal of the PhyloCode Group is to make all taxa equal,
and the rules logically apply to all. This is something de Quieroz and
Gauthier et al. have been working on, have published on, and for the most
part most taxonomists agree upon. If one discards the rules, one is no
longer a contributor in the system. One can apply the recommendations, if
one chooses, now, to make the system work.

  Deciding on one's own that the mere existence, without application, of a
name means anythign would invite coutless confusing and ultimately
meaningless discussions of what Borogovia is, meaning I can call the use
of "unnamed stem" part of any figure as a name by fact and mere existence
of the use of a uniquely-parsed phrase to describe an entity in a
cladogram. Similarly, usage of "node 1", "node 2", etc..

  Cheers,

=====
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.

"Innocent, unbiased observation is a myth." --- P.B. Medawar (1969)

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