Re: Strange thoughts on PN - was Re: BAD vs. BADD

[David Marjanovic <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

> But isn't it strange that, despite this list being frequented mostly
> by stronge believers in PN + cladistics, it is still called the
> "dinosaur mailing list", not the "non-avian dinosaur mailing list"?

Just last week we discussed neoavian phylogeny.

> And doesn't "The complete dinosaur"-book exclude birds almost
> completely (so, according to PN, it excludes about 80-90% of
> all dinosaurs and still calls itself "complete")

That was in 1997...

> And isn't it strange that it seems none of the PN-adherents here has
> a problem with the notion "non-avian dinosaur", but can argue against
> how arbitrary it would be to separate dinosaurs from birds?

"Non-avian dinosaur" is no different from "non-neornithean dinosaur" or 
"non-maniraptoran dinosaur".

> Thought experiment: [...]

That's about species concepts, not about phylogenetic nomenclature ( = how 
to name clades).

> Strangely, if all Cladistians were instead wiped out before evolving,
> earth nomenclature can stay as it was.

I think you are alluding to Hennig's species concept (species = internode). 
I don't think anybody uses it, but in any case, it isn't part of PN. PN is 
just about clades; it is militantly agnostic about species concepts 
(including the question of whether species should be recognized at all).

For those who don't know the Hennigian species concept (...which is, 
intelligently, neither the "cladistic species concept" nor the "phylogenetic 
species concept"): Suppose a fly from Italy, full with eggs, gets blown 
across the Adriatic Sea by a storm, survives, and ends up establishing a 
population in Croatia. No gene flow happens between the two populations. 
Hennig sez: we have _two_ new species, and the original species is 
pseudoextinct. Why? Because the removal of that egg-laden female changed the 
gene pool of the Italian population; no longer the same gene pool, no longer 
the same species. In principle this is not a bad argument, but it is (AFAIK) 
universally considered a huge blunder. Suppose the same fly gets blown into 
the sea and drowns miserably. Same change to the gene pool of the original 
population. But because we don't know about it, we don't create new species 
names. If we did know about it, should we? Certainly not. Happens too often. 
Would change names every day.

Hennig equaled cladogenesis and speciation. He wrote "speciation" when he 
meant "cladogenesis". There is no need to do that.