Template talk:Taxonomy/Reptiliomorpha

Where to anchor the Reptiliomorpha

The root of the tetrapod tree is rather fussy. Exactly where the reptiliomorphs anchor among the labyrinthodont groups is not entirely clear, their origin probably being within the Romer's gap. Ultimately of course, they evolved from the Ichthyostegalia, another grade. The problem here is what to put in the taxo-box. This very same discussion has raged on the Reptile-page for several years.

The consensus so far has been to stick to conventional Linnaean systematics in the taxo box. The taxobox is there to provide a quick overview. The various workers in the field or any of the other people with a bit of knowledge about labyrinthodont phylogeny do not need the taxobox, they can probably cite the content in their sleep if need be. Thus the classification in the taxobox is there to offer overview to the laymen. As such, I strongly feel Wikipedia will be better served by using the simplified and sometimes inconsistent classical system (including the more popularly known and used Amphibia in the wider sense) there, saving the cladistic to the main text, where it can be embroidered to ones hearts content. Petter Bøckman (talk) 10:22, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't necessarily agree with this; if it's true that taxonomy is moving to a more rigorous "cladistic" approach or whatever it's called, it might be worth using that in taxoboxes, sort of in the name of education vs. "dumbing-down". I'm no expert here, though. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 19:42, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, the whole thing is a bit up in the air for the moment. Whatever it will land on is anyone's guess. It does not help that workers in different branches uses very different systems. On one extreme is dino-palaeontology where non-formal cladistic name use is very common, on the other extreme are entomology and parts of botany where formal Linnaean systematics is the norm. It appears that quite a few of the editors working with palaeontology-related articles have their background from dinosaur studies. Compounding this problem is the fact that the phylogeny of ancient amphibians is poorly understood, so that a taxonomical approach based strictly on phylogenetics won't work very well. Even Laurin, long time member and former president and secretary of the International Society for Phylogenetic Nomenclature who work in this field, uses broad, traditional names for the various subgroups. He even uses 'amphibian', but as an ardent ISPN member without the ranks. Other workers uses a variety of more traditional systems.

As for how common phylogenetic nomenclature is relative to traditional ranked taxonomy in total, Laurin has estimated that traditional ranked taxonomy is 10 times as common as unranked cladistic taxonomy. I would prefer an unified system across Wikipedia, and I would like to see the most commonly used system, not the system pushed by a particular, if very vocal, subfield. Petter Bøckman (talk) 09:10, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Isn't "ranks vs. unranked" completely orthogonal to "strict cladistic approach vs. not-necessarily-clade-based-sometimes-use-paraphyletic-groups"? I think we're talking about the latter question. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 20:01, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

They are kind of parallel. One of the basal reasons behind rankless cladistic/phylogenetic nomenclature is that there aren't enough ranks to go around if one insists on ranks for every named node. The very well mapped dinosaur tree is a good example, where a couple of dozen levels need to be squeezed in between the order Saurischia and family Dromeosauridae (the raptors), not to mention the problem of the class Aves branching off somewhere down among the dromeosauids. The two questions can be independent (do we call mammals 'class Mammalia' or just 'Mammalia'?), but often they are not. In Laurin's article above, he has used ranks as a signifier for traditional (i.e. users of not-necessarily-clade-based-sometimes-use-paraphyletic-groups) taxonomy. Petter Bøckman (talk) 08:10, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

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