FW: Nopcsaspondylus has no hypophene, please

[Jaime Headden <qi_leong@hotmail.com>]

Because my own copy of David's resending of my truncated post (which I got 
without, but who knows) came through from David with some reformatting that 
looks hideous, I'm re-resending this. As it has always been, it's [still] in 
"plain text" mode.

<There's no such thing as a "minor" clade. This is the sort of typological 
thinking that Ranks provided us, that the ICZN enforced with its "only 
Families, Genera and Species matter" attitude, and continues to stand in the 
way of people willing to break the constraints of the old system. We are told 
"it works," but it doesn't; it's a crutch for the sake of something that feels 
familiar and functional (nesting nomenclature), but it is otherwise useless 
aside from the feeling of having your names chosen for you. It means less 
memorization, but it means sticking with a system and a typological thinking 
that is fundamentally flawed. As long as the system is used, and continues to 
be used, it will impair the breaking of the "Ranks-are-useful" mind-set that 
pervades systematic biology and [to a lesser extent] paleontology.> 
 
Cheers, 

Jaime A. Headden 
The Bite Stuff (site v2) 
http://qilong.wordpress.com/ 

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

"Ever since man first left his cave and met a stranger with a different  
language and a new way of looking at things, the human race has had a  dream: 
to kill him, so we don't have to learn his language or his new  way of looking 
at things." --- Zapp Brannigan (Beast With a Billion Backs)