Anon.  wrote:

> John Wilkins wrote:
> >  wrote:
> > 
> > 
> 
> >>**tiresome advocacy on** You might think that one could
quickly judge the
> >>support for the Phylocode by looking at what percentage of
classifications
> >>in the literature use it, but this is harder than you might think -- as
> >>not that many classifications are being published.  These days not that
> >>many phylogenetic systematists make classifications.  They infer
> >>phylogenies, and base interesting biological conclusions on
them, without
> >>the intermediate step of reducing them to classifications.  How one does
> >>the classification matters less and less to drawing conclusions from
> >>phylogenies.  The whole subject of classification (at least, above the
> >>species level) is widely hailed as Central To Systematics, praised in
> >>presidential addresses and meeting banquet speeches, taught as basic in
> >>courses, held out to philosophers and historians as The Main Issue, but
> >>then increasingly ignored in practice.` **tiresome advocacy off**
> > 
> > 
> > Of course, as the leading advocate of the It Doesn't Matter Very Much
> > School of systematics, you *would* say that :-)
> > 
> > I think there are two distinct notions of classification in play - one,
> > which is a very English thing (at least most of those who take this
> > line, like Maynard Smith, are English) is that classification is a
> > matter of communication, as John Locke (another Englishman) noted a
> > short while back. The other is that groups in classifications must be
> > natural groups. The rest of the debate is over which of these rules
> > systematics, and what counts as a "natural" group (the
options being
> > clouds, clades, grades or classes). But since I'm merely a member of the
> > nonparticipant audience, my views matter not at all.
> 
> I was going to reply to Joe's post saying that as long as we know what
> organism we're talking about, it doesn't really matter.  Then I read 
> this, and realised that it must just be because I'm English.  My 
> reasoning is that there doesn't seem to be a natural classification -
> even species can be difficult.

It does seem to be an English thing, is my impression. But there is a
distinction between saying "it is difficult to define 'species'",
"it is
difficult to delineate species" and "it is sometimes difficult to
delineate *some* species". I take the third to be true, the second to be
often false, and the first to be definitional and a truism :-)
> 
> Bob
> 
> P.S. Does Joe work in the "other" Washington now?  I just
saw this title
> in the latest issue of Evolution:
> MULTILOCUS MODELS OF SYMPATRIC SPECIATION: BUSH VERSUS RICE VERSUS 
> FELSENSTEIN.

I think Guy Bush would have made a fine president... which Rice are we
talking about here?

-- 
John Wilkins - wilkins.id.au
[I]magine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, "...interesting
hole I find myself in - fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? ...
must have been made to have me in it." Douglas Adams, Salmon of Doubt
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