Re: Taxonomy

r norman <r_s_norman@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Mon, 12 May 2008 17:00:12 -0700, John Harshman
<jharshman.diespamdie@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

r norman wrote:
On Wed, 07 May 2008 20:26:04 -0400, Tom <tom@xxxxxxx> wrote:

On Wed, 07 May 2008 20:18:54 -0400, r norman <r_s_norman@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

On Wed, 07 May 2008 19:47:28 -0400, Tom <tom@xxxxxxx> wrote:

I am perplexed about something. Some creationists (not all so don't
yell at me) seem to oppose evolution because they claim they have seen
no evidence of one species turning into another species.

But are creationists even allowed to talk about species? If all life
forms are a result of special creation, taxonomy is meaningless. A
mouse is no more "related" to a rat than it is to an ostrich.

I am sure some creationists have their own, non-scientific definition
of "species", that will allow them to dance around this issue. But
science describes a species (and a phylum and an order and a class and
a family) within an evolutionary framework. In fact, some organisms
have been reclassified because DNS testing shows them to be related.
In modern biology, there is no classification system that does not
rely on evolution.

So is it just evolution we have to get rid of? Or do we also have to
get rid of the whole system we use to classify living organisms?
Your general notion of evolution being the foundation of modern
taxonomy is correct but historically wrong. Taxonomy long predates
the theory of evolution. If fact the trees of similarity developed by
taxonomists was one of the important factors producing evolutionary
thinking -- would could explain the nested similarity relationships?

Yes, you are right. Taxonomy predates evolution. But the pre-evolution
taxonomy was wrong. So if we ban evolution, should we go back to the
(wrong) taxonomy of 1850?

I am not sure I get your point. You seem to say that taxonomy without
evolution is impossible, yet it clearly is not. Whatever reasons
people had in 1850 for organizing organisms into a tree of
relationships still holds.

Bit of a terminological problem, that. They weren't organized into a
tree of relationships. They were classified. Classifications were not
interpreted as trees until Darwin. They were representations of some
kind of vaguely explained, static order.

But your point remains.

Organisms do have DNA and there is a tree
of relationships that can be derived from looking at their DNA. Just
as the 1850 scientists had no trouble creating and debating their
trees, so 2008 scientists would have no trouble creating and debating
modern trees even without necessarily using evolution. The
mathematics of tree building based on similarities would still apply.

Yes, but without evolution they aren't trees of relationship, merely
summaries of degrees of similarity.

The hierarchy of taxa constitutes a mathematical tree structure,
whether so drawn or not. You are right, they did not refer to
"trees". I would guess (and Wilkins will correct me on this) that
they "really knew" that the nested hierarchy is a tree but refrained
from pointing it out because of the obvious parallel to family trees.

Actually, they used *logical* trees in the early 19thC. George Bentham,
who later became a botanist of note, took the tree structure of Linnean
typography (with indentations and braces used to show relationships) and
turned them 90° to make modern-looking trees in the 1830s.

The logical trees are called, sometimes, the Tree of Porphyry or the
Tree of Ramus, respectively after a late classical and late medieval
logical writer. They were common in the 15th century onwards as ways to
diagram logical relations. In natural history, however, they were
nothing more than useful ways to arrange lists, until Bentham. The
identification of logical trees of organisms with temporal trees was
made publicly by Heinrich Bronn in the 1850s, before Darwin, although
Darwin used, famously, a tree diagram in his 1828 Notebook.
--
John S. Wilkins, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Philosophy
University of Queensland - Blog: scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts
"He used... sarcasm. He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor,
bathos, puns, parody, litotes and... satire. He was vicious."

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Youre assuming that things were the same back then!
    ... I am assuming that trees produced rings in the past as they ... argue so for the scientific invalidity of evolution is asinine. ... Keep fornicating if you like, ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Youre assuming that things were the same back then!
    ... I am assuming that trees produced rings in the past as they ... argue so for the scientific invalidity of evolution is asinine. ... Stay away from the pot, it is still illegal, and you don't need things ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Taxonomy
    ... yell at me) seem to oppose evolution because they claim they have seen ... no evidence of one species turning into another species. ... forms are a result of special creation, taxonomy is meaningless. ... If fact the trees of similarity developed by ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Youre assuming that things were the same back then!
    ... I am assuming that trees produced rings in the past as they ... argue so for the scientific invalidity of evolution is asinine. ... if tree rings werent yearly in the past, but are yearly now, then ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Speculative Design Hypothesis (with predictions)
    ... > When we divide life up, I prefer an iron clade separation. ... showing definite evolution over time along each ... trees. ... the same cells or species. ...
    (talk.origins)
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