Should New Disruptive Technologies be Used for Classification in Ancient Linnaean Rankings

[swampster]

@elsemikkelsen @stockslager
A lot of the discussion happening in the Dandelion Manifesto thread would be more appropriate here since the discussion there seems to be diverging from the original topic of that thread and instead centering around some fear that “new technologies” are leading to rampant splitting. For that reason, I will address some things here:

@elsemikkelsen

I think it is important to consider the reason that there is so much focus on species - it is the only rank that carries (or at least is intended to carry) some sort of real-world biological meaning. While there are many different definitions of species (due to differences in philosophy or differences in the underlying biology of the organism being considered), most definitions are intended to capture something “real”.

This doesn’t really hold true. Some taxonomic levels are less well known, but certainly things like “birds”, “reptiles”, etc. mean something and so do most (all?) of the finer and broader scale classifications. Taxonomy is messy sure, but no taxonomic level is meaningless.

@stockslager

This is precisely why the rank shouldn’t be allowed to grow faster than the baseline rate of evolution due to advancement in technology. To allow this would eliminate the ability for those applying science to measure their success at preserving species.

I think you are trying to apply taxonomy here in a way that is somewhat nonsensical. Like all science, it is subject to revision by better science.