Why heirarchical taxonomy? Linnean system vs. Phylocode?

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Now I wonder, since most creationists must have encountered at least the classical Linnean system in school, do they reject it?

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Speaking for myself, I first encountered the Linnean classification scheme as a creationist when I took biology in high school. If I recall correctly, it was this classification that I first began to realize that there may be more to this evolution business than I thought.

perhaps a little confusion on both parts ...both linnean and phylocode are nested systems of categorizing species in the tree of life, with phylocode bringing in more of the genetic evidence and structure. the tree of life with known problems and the work being done to fix it ... versus "kind" categories"kind" is not a nested system or even a system of relations, so comparing it with either is false.I found this site of interest
http://www.ohiou.edu/phylocode/index.html

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

Can interbreed and produce viable offspring? Quite rare, in fact (though not unheard of)[added in edit, because I realised I didn't actually make a point in my post]:which hybridizations do you have in mind? I mean hybridizations that challenge the biological species concept.This message has been edited by mick, 04-08-2005 05:41 PM

razd is right.in fact "kind" is not even a system. it's one of the most stupid generalized terms I can imagine to describe the diversity of life.I think it's worth taking a moment to praise taxonomists. There would be no biology whatsoever without them. It is through their systematic, thorough, and objective lens that biology has taken shape over the last century or so.mick

I usually start thinking about cat hydrids, which are usually fertile.In the wild they never really interbreed, because of social order, but they are capable of interbreeding with other species in the cat family. I guess the only reason they are separate species is because they wouldn't normally mate in the wild (that and the fact that humans don't breed them very often is the reason it's rare).Then, I don't know if cattle and bison are put into separate species, or if breeds of domestic cattle are put into separate species either.And something like african wild dogs are a different species from domestic dogs as are wolves ,but I think all can interbreed and produce fertile offspring.Then there's the other direction. I'm also not sure if they've given lab rabbits a new species because after being bred in captivity all these generations they can't interbreed with wild rabbits. I guess that's not the same and only an example of observed speciation.Anyway, this just reinforces my belief that these classification systems, at least at the species level is kind of hard to nail down objectively. It's difficult to assign certain types of animals (don't know the other kindoms) to a specific species and another to a different species. The basis for the assignment isn't entirely concrete.

Maybe people are missing the point of the thing.
I guess I wasn't clear in that I was hypothesizing a system equal in scope with the Linnean system or Phylocode, but it has as a division of classification "kind" instead of something like a genus or maybe even an order. Perhaps it would not be exaclty equivalent to either but required some other criteria to fill it. It would be in a heirarchy just the same as either Linneus or Phylocode and would describe ALL life. It would just have the term "kind" in there, so as to stick to the Bible, and thus making the Bible more accurate in some way (as long as there was some sort of accelerated evolution that took place right after the flood and does not happen today). Praise be to them. All glory and honor are theirs, forever and ever. But really, there has to be a limit to the objectivity, especially at the species level in lots of cases.

well, genera and orders don't even exist. I don't see the point in adding a new non-existent grouping...

Because then we will be able to deal with an intelligent being rather than a deity where one thinks a transition to nonexistence or rather the supersenuous thing in itself. It could assit in making pure what is but practical(as to other kinds) and in my guess still analytic no matter the art in the defective representation given by a physical telology not really tastefully cultured by society as of yet. I will discuss this directly in reference to habitations throughout the food chain if Mike's proposal is opened.A like kind or baramin system is needed because man-made purposes of life need to be seperable from natural purposes. We are a long way from saying what a creature's attribute might be FOR in man's sense let alone ethically keeping ourselves from exploting that possible synthetic knowledge. Gould was well aware that the population question needs to be addressed and I dont see a nonwar solution if we dont start to expand the ablility of scientists to predicate.I am well aware of a sense in which not even the "genus" exists but the methodology has focused on the form i think over form-making and translation in space as one(by inappropriate analysis(procedural) of "programs" and methods not represenative of history). But these categories (the class etc) might exist with respect to products of intelligence suseptible to teleogical criticsm even if they would not be but paraphyletic and less usefull for those trying only to figure out the change in the forms' form-making that for baraminic reasons possibly and man-made physical teleogical connections might be polyphyletic. I dont think we can say for sure that the disrespect for species in a common panbiogeography is not due to natural purposes ALREADY observed by biogeographers. There just is not a science of this because evolution in its post pop sociobiology is too reactive to the metaphysics prior to the ethics that it has a hard time expanding its boundaries. That it is incapable of so doing I have in no way found. It just requires a little massaging.Mick, I am beginning to notice that the way Percy has this board working it is difficult to get this conversation beyond transitions from the hypothetical to the categorical imperative. The point of adding a like kind kind of goes the other way.Kant said, "The first thing that must be designedly prepared in an arrangement for a purposive complex of natural beings on the earth would be their place of habitation" but as long as we insist on Systematics rather thanalso Discontinuity Systematics we might never get to the topography where the baramin but not the monophyly divide out the designed from the undesigned habitations or niches. Man is certainly permited to do somethings to the earth and change it but if we dont know what the geographic collection localities might be desigend TO we can little know if we get the method of historical guessing correct either. The future can help with the past. Of course if we waffle long enough academically we might get forced scientifically to develop such, on data of life on Mars etc but it is silly to think about this life equally on Mars or a Moon off the outer solar system planets. There will be some kind of barrier.This message has been edited by Brad McFall, 04-12-2005 04:30 PM

What do you mean they don't exist?
Do you mean in real life, or in my hypothetical creationist classification system?I guess they don't have to exist.
There would be other categories with other names.
"Kind" would be one of those categories.The point is not to add things or subtract things from existing systems. It's to divise a system that has a category "kind" that is equal in scope to existing systems.

That is an interesting thought. It never occured to me how we would classify extraterrestrial life once we do actualy find some. Do we stick it in with the earthly critters if they look similar, or do they get their own kingdom etc? Hmmmmmmmmmmmm................

I think it brings to a tail, Nelson and Plantnick's page 370 paragraph two of Systematics and Biogeography

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"The sense of the whole discussion seems best analyzed in relation to two alternative views of the world: one shared by Linnaeus and Buffon, that all species have a history traceable to one center of origin (Linnaeus' "Paradise" or Buffon's "Old World"),from which species dispersed to colonize other areas; the other held by Candolle, that each species has a history traceable to one of many regions,wherein species were confined by barriers that were generally effective in preventing dispersal."

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.Now Nelson rejected the use of main massings in Croizat's method but my suspicion is that if extraterrestrial life is uncovered it will return the discussion to this variable in geographic distributions at one of the last correspondences of Croizat where he TOLD Craw that EITHER chance dispersal or vicariance is to go. If there is advanced life (like protozoan remains etc) it seems likely that chance dispersal will have to go but this seems less likely than simply finding some procayotes but if we have a well worked up molecular evolution by this discovery period we might be able to see if there was a barrier at a latter place in the clade analysis but one must not be too convinced by the order alone...Anyway..the old world might find a closer bed fellow with multiple candolle regions on another side of the ostensive vicariant barrier than the logic N&P used to seperate the garden of eden from their own work. we shall see..or rather another generation of biologists will...if for instance Lyell's idea of an equilibrium of life and death displaces invidual neo-darwinist organicist current prejudice... I have no idea when alternatives might become standards.

We'd have to look at the DNA or what passes for DNA in the XT'sif there was no comparison then it would be pretty obvious that a whole different tree of life had flourished elsewhere and that there would be not rational reason to include them in our little shrubif there was a comparison then some pretty big questions would be raised eh?did life come from some other common source or is DNA an inevitable result given the proper seed conditions?

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

I hope you professional taxonomists will not take offense at the opinion of a lay person, but several things occur to me and I seek guidance from those who know more than I.The preface of the current iteration of the PhyloCode (v2b) specifically states that part of the purpose of establishing a new system is a desire to eliminate the inherent structural creationism in the Linnean system, although this has been, for the most part, simply ignored since Darwin. Even so, stating it baldly is certain to distract the majority of creationist scientists (forgive the apparent oxymoron).In addition, the PhyloCode is, in theory, able to coexist with the Linnean system. That is spin. It cannot do so, and the great majority of scientists who have developed a memory pattern based upon the old system simply cannot suddenly translate the knowledge accrued over an entire career into a system which is not fully mature.I agree that a better system is probably long overdue, but in order for it to be accepted, the authors will have to go to the trouble of actually re-classifying everything to the parameters of their system and presenting it to the scientific community as a fait accompli instead of proposing a new classification and asking scientists to contribute to a database. That is a disaster waiting to happen.And finally, this is a cladistic model even though it is called something else. In it, the newest member of any clade is identified and charted but, until everything which ever lived on the planet is identified by DNA or whatever comes next, it is merely a guessing game and can therefore not be any more accurate than the Linnean system (which I dislike immensely because I am not able to follow it logically).I believe it is a good idea whose time has not come unless they do the work themselves. Conversely, I believe religion, and specifically organized religion is an idea whose time has past.I don't proofread.....a sad failing from my college days when I didn't have to. Please forgive the typos.

I'm pretty sure that individual organisms exist. And I can accept theories of reproductive isolation that show that species really exist.If you placed two unknown organisms in front of me, I could form a reasonable judgement on whether they're distinct individuals or not, although that may be difficult. I could try to mate them together, and could consequently also make a judgement on whether they're different species or not.But I can't think of any experiment that might let me decide whether they are different genera, supergenera, families, kinds, baramins, what have you. As far as I am concerned, I deal with individual organisms which may or may not be reproductively isolated from each other and which can be organised cladistically into a hierarchical structure.The individual and the species might be real distinct biological entities based on our understanding of gene flow and population genetics. Any taxonomic hierarchy above that level is suspect, but might be useful for various reasons. But those higher taxonomic levels are not real biological entities.

what??you're saying there is no such thing as macroevolution???I'm shocked! SHOCKED!!!!!

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}