controversy among scientists--PhyloCode

tarav

I read an article in Discover recently that discusses a controversial issue among scientists. I found it very interesting and thought that some of you might have an opinion on the matter. The article is about an alternate phylogenetic system of taxonomy, called PhyloCode. It would be an alternative to the Linnaean system and cladistics. What I perceive as the main benefit to PhyloCode is that it is a system based on common ancestry, instead of just physical similarities. It is a system that takes into account evolutionary theory. What I understand to be the main problem with PhyloCode is that switching to a new system would be costly and confusing in the beginning. However, I feel that the accuracy and ease of the system would, in the long run, benefit science. Please read the following excerpts and let me know what you think. Unfortunately, the site only provides part of the article, so I cannot post the entire article. It is also a lengthy article. I have selected what I think are the most important parts of the article to post here for you.

The following are some excerpts from, “What if we decide to rename every living thing on Earth?”By Joshua Foer DISCOVER Vol. 26 No. 04 | April 2005 | Biology & Medicine
“Proponents of the PhyloCode say the old system, originally developed by Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus before Darwin discovered natural selection, is so archaic that every taxonomic grouping needs to be redefined. It’s a plan as ambitious as it is controversial. Science is supposed to shed its old habits when better ways of doing things come along. But who decides when one way of doing things is better than another?
When Linnaeus developed this system in the middle of the 18th century, evolution was still an exotic hypothesis, and fossils were thought to be the remains of animals that hadn’t made it onto Noah’s ark. Linnaeus himself freely mixed biology and theology: He believed his classification scheme was a window into the divine order of the universe.
Linnaeus cataloged the natural world by grouping things that looked alike; Darwin showed that things that look alike tend to be closely related. As evolutionary theory evolved, however, the system had to be jury-rigged. In the 1960s, the German entomologist Willi Hennig invented cladistics, a method of determining which branches go where on the tree of life. Since then, taxonomists have tried to group organisms according to common ancestry rather than mere similarity.
The PhyloCoders don’t think that they’ve done a very good job. Regrouping species according to cladistics has only complicated an already confusing and outdated system, they say. Better to start from scratch, with taxonomic groups defined solely by their position on the tree of life rather than by common traits. In Gauthier’s words: “The feathers don’t make the bird; the bird makes the feathers.” Under the traditional system, for example, mammals might be defined as warm-blooded animals with hair and mammary glands (in fact, there’s no single definition, and at least 10 have been used over the years). Under the PhyloCode, they might be defined as all creatures descended from the most recent common ancestor of Homo sapiens and the platypus. The new definition is the equivalent of pointing to the tips of two twigs on the tree of life, tracing the branches back to where they meet, and describing the taxonomic group as everything in between.
Gauthier says, “Everything else has changed since Darwin, but not this.”
Several years ago, for instance, it was decided that the great-ape family Pongidae couldn’t exist at the same rank as the human family Hominidae because humans are a subset of the great apes. To fix the problem, researchers proposed that humans and their great-ape relatives be combined into a single family, Hominidae, and members of the family Pongidae become the subfamily Ponginae.
Opponents of the PhyloCode have dismissed its advocates as spinmeisters, arrogant usurpers, and practitioners of “Orwellian antilogic.” They’ve compared them to communists one minute and fascists the next.
If the PhyloCode were adopted, biology textbooks would have to be rewritten, museum collections reorganized, legislation revised. The cost of rewriting the Endangered Species Act alone “could range in millions to billions of dollars,” according to one recent article in the journal Taxon.”

marti1900 · Senior Joined: 14 Mar 2005 Posts: 354 Gender:

Wow. What an interesting article. Sounds like the arguments against changing the system of taxonomy is based on two points 1) economics (not a small concern, either), and 2) the old 'if it was good enough for grandpaw it's good enough for me' attitute. People hate change. Especially if it entails a lot of work.

But it certainly sounds like it makes more sense than the current system.

If the system is changed, will Kings Play Chess on Fine Grain Sands still be valid? (kingdom phylum class family genus species) Or just what goes into those classifications. Gee, it took me 30 years to learn the order.

Marti in Mexico


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