Taxonomic 'Jargon'

[Michael Schmitt]

Dear colleagues,

At 09:20 05.11.02 -0600, Diana Horton wrote:
>I'm teaching Systematic theory at the moment, and I'd like to come up with
>a list of taxonomic 'jargon' for the class.  For example, a 'good'
>species.  Any contributions will be very much appreciated!

Maybe it is worth discussing the widely used terms "primitive"/"low" and
"advanced"/"high" as applied to taxa (as long as we can distinguish a taxon
as a monophyletic one from others, it must at least possess one
autapomorphy amongst several or many plesiomorphies. Thus, what does
"primitive" mean? I have the impression that "primitive" and "advanced" are
used unconsciously in an anthropomorphic way: the more similar to humans an
animal is in one respect or another, the more "advanced" it appears to us.
E.g. the "highest" insects are social Hymenoptera since they are living in
a social system that resembles a human (western) nation, or the "highest"
molluscs are the cephalopods since they possess the largest brains, as we
do amongst the vertebrates, and so on.

Another example could be the concept of "relation". Regularly taxa are
called "non-related" although from evolutionary theory it is clear that
they must have a common ancestor (as long as the monophyly of e.g. the
Metazoa holds true). So, what do we mean when saying "these two taxa are
related, while these other two are not".

                                 Greetings
                                 Michael



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