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Systematics article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
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This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available
on the course page. Student editor(s):
Mjaquino,
Kmoleary87.
Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT ( talk) 10:37, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
I vote for redirecting to taxonomy if there are no other usages for the term. I kind of think there might be (non-biological), but I'm hard pressed to remember any of them. [user:Rgamble|Rgamble]]
I am working on an article on systematics as the study of multi-term systems as developed by John G Bennett. I did a page but then found that it did not exist![user:age blake]
Wasn't taxonomy about classification and name-giving taxa, and systematics the study of organisms' evolutionary relationships? The latter is a research program and the former a practice.
Quoting [1]:
Systematics: the science of organizing the history of organismal evolution the science of ordering Identification: recognizing the place of an organisms in an existing classification Use of dichotomous keys to identify organisms Taxonomy (Nomenclature): assigning scientific names according to legal rules Recall discussion of ICZN Green Book (see also Phylocode homepage) Classification: determining the evolutionary relationships of organisms A "Natural Classification" will accurately reflect phylogeny Classification should be a hypothesis of evolutionary relationships
Shouldn't we divide taxonomy from systematics more clearly? Even in the taxoboxes? I noticed that the French wikipedia put a 'classical classification' (with Linnean categories) in their taxoboxes as well as a 'phylogenetic classification' (without Linnean categories). This seems like a good practice. Maybe we can do the same at other wikipedia's but call these Taxonomy and Systematics respectively. Fedor 09:39, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
There is an article I am reading called, "Does Systematics Drive Old Testiment Exegesis? Or Can God Still Change His Mind? Questions of Method" by J. Daniel Hays. Not sure if this will help someone expand the article or put it somewhere else. I am still unsure what it means... 66.68.215.101 15:15, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
"Systematics is also of major importance in understanding conservation issues because it attempts to explain the Earth's biodiversity and could be used to assist in allocating limited means to preserve and protect endangered species, by looking at, for example, the genetic diversity among various taxa of plants or animals and deciding how much of that it is necessary to preserve."
Every word after "biodiversity" is unnecessary and is unrelated to the actual science of systematics. If that type of effort can be confirmed, then it deserves its own subsection.
I suggest an omission of this entire paragraph or at least a complete overhaul.
Systematics was added to this template. It is located under Life sciences. – Paine Ellsworth ( CLIMAX ) 21:17, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
I see a serious problem with this treatment as well as the biological classification article, which links to this one. That is that the program of classification is very distinct from program of systematics, but the differences are not discussed (accurately) in either article. In brief, classification is based on the essentialist notion that biological entities represent "types" and that these can be sorted into classes based on their properties. They become members of the class and representatives of that type. This typological treatment need not be evolutionary, though in modern biology it often strives to be. In any case, the program of classification is waning in biology as we realize that classification is largely arbitrary and does not accurately reflect the dynamic and historical nature of life and evolution. Systematization is the endeavor to put biological entities into a system of relationships, which in the case of modern biology are evolutionary relationships. The objects are ordered as connected parts of a whole.
Unfortunately, these articles make pronouncements about classification being a part of systematics (e.g. the very old (and dated) Raven et al. quote) rather than a fundamentally different endeavor. These distinctions, while present in the older literature among theorists, did not come into the fore as an issue until the 1990s.
I think both of these articles should be updated. While WP is not the place to advocate one program over the other, it is true (and supportable with references) that classification and systematics are distinctly different and the former is falling out of favor while the latter is waxing.
This is also a sticky issue in regards to taxonomy, as some taxonomists prefer traditional classification-based taxonomies, while some (mostly systematists) prefer a rankless, phylogenetic nomenclature. It seems that most biologists recognize that taxonomic schemes should be largely evolutionary, but there is debate about whether paraphyletic groups should be allowed and whether taxonomic schemes need to exactly reflect evolutionary history, and if so, how the taxonomic schemes might work (e.g. phylocode).
I plan to edit these two articles and see if others agree. Michaplot ( talk) 00:25, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
Peter--completely agreed, the difficult question is what to do about this. I have been hesitant to edit some of these articles as I am keenly sensitive to my own biases, so it would be good to have a counterpoint in that endeavor. It is also hard to know where to begin.
As for the bigger issues, I think you have proven my point! I don't think "real" is a big problem to define in the narrow materialist sense. (I would say that a natural entity is real if it would exist in the absence of people.) In fact, the Mishler chapter you cited supports what I am arguing here. Mishler says in this chapter, "species properly defined are [emphasis Mishler's] real entities, but not uniquely real." What he is arguing is that species have no special status as a level and that species seem special because they are typically the most easily defined smallest inclusive group in a set of nested monophyletic groups (that is, below the level of species there is reticulation.) I remember discussing this with Mishler when I was a student, and he was keen on pointing out that an individual liverwort might fragment giving rise to a population of individuals all genetically derived from an original individual. This was a monophyletic group in his estimation. So his argument seems to be that species have no special status as there may be monophyletic groups smaller than species. So he sees the problem as a taxon problem--defining the smallest monophyletic group and naming it, if we think it is relevant to give it a name.
Mishler answers the question, "Are species real?" by claiming that, "all working biologists today think that the answer to [that] question is yes: species are real entities in some sense (although the grouping criterion considered to be the basis for their reality varies....)" And therein is the rub. Essentialist notions of species and other taxa are at the heart of classification. Systematics, on the other hand, despite being widely misconstrued, is about mapping, the pattern of evolution and does not inherently suggest a classification scheme. As Mishler suggests, we don't even have to give every lineage a name if it is not important to communicate about it.
As for who all these typologist are, they are legion. I can send you names if you want, but nearly every taxonomist who dabbles in classification is a typologist. My reading of Mayr, contrary to what you say, is not that he a defender of traditional classification and was opposed to cladistics (he coined the term). I think Mayr attempted to reconcile phenetics (another term he coined) with cladistics. He thought he should include both similarity of features and genealogy in a classification (he thought of himself as an evolutionary taxonomist, and such represented an initial attempt to reconcile tradition Linnaean taxonomy with evolution). He was a pioneer, but I think the thinking has evolved away from classification and phenetics altogether. His student Rober O'Hara argues convincingly that classification is not even viable for biological entities where it might be for non-biological entities.
As for a shared gene pool, Mayr was quick to point out that populations could be identified as part of the same species if they could potentially share genes. As I said, nature is messy and a ring species is a fascinating example of why essentialism does not serve biology. It is easy to tell that whale is a different species than a petunia, but different species of whale may not be easy to distinguish. A ring species may be impossible. These are incipient species as they have not achieved reproductive isolation. Still, these examples only prove the rule. I doubt if any botanist doubts that petals exist, but what about when petals grade into stamen or sepals. In those instances, it is hard to say what is a petal and what is not. This does not call into question the existence of petals as a genetic and morphological reality, it only shows we can't assume nature is working from a mold of an essential prototype of petal. The same can be said for any aspect of nature. Male and female sexes are undeniable, and yet in some cases the designation is obscure, even among humans. Don't confuse our difficulty in distinguishing what is going on with the idea that what is going on is not "real".
Finally, as for your "but", I would say that if a higher taxon is phylogenetically based, it must have at least one synapomorphy. If it is only DNA sequence characters, so be it. We can simply say that the particular group has been identified by molecular analyses. Some clades discovered by DNA are certainly counterintuitive in terms of the appearance of the members within them, but often subsequent analysis, with the benefit of hindsight, does reveal some theme or thread (inferior ovaries in Asparagales?).
I am enthusiastically in favor of focusing plant group articles on lineages with biological features rather than on taxonomic groups. The taxonomy can be included in the article but should not be primary. However, I have already had a user (Rkitko) question me about such changes. It may be a messy fight. Michaplot ( talk) 22:13, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
Some thoughts, or if you prefer, lack of thoughts where thoughts are needed. What would one call a thing like that: a question? Well, never mind... Here some of the slots anyway, arising as I scan the recent exchanges:
I see that some of what I have said seems compatible with some of Peter C's remarks, not that I would claim to be representing his points in any form acceptable to him.
(Not that I agree, of course…;-) )
OK, I had intended to work through the whole correspondence, but that won't work! Let's give it a rest for the moment. Cheers, Jon JonRichfield ( talk) 17:01, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
As Peter C suggests, there are several issues to consider.
Speaking as possibly the only non-taxonomist/non-systematist in the thread, please tolerate a heartfelt plea before getting too deep into actual writing. The plea is motivated by the fact that neither the facts nor the opinions lend themselves to the production of a monolithic document (yet!) The heartfeeling is motivated by having seen no end of projects where there never were the time or resources to do it right, but always was time and money to do it over (yet again falling foul of the same traps as before!)
The plea: For heavens' sakes let's do it top down! Let someone (or several in parallel) produce a skeleton article that if (hypothetically) expanded, would satisfy all parties and all readers, sophisticated in the subject matter or not. This article would be at most a couple of thousand words, or even a couple of hundred if some Medawar reincarnation were to materialise, who could name all the major subject themes in proper context, but without elaboration, maybe even without definition (details to be hammered out later. There might even be two types of expansions, simple, and professional... details details!)
Right! When everyone is happy with that skeleton (or root node or whatever you might call it or however you might construct it) not counting all the material he is bursting to add concerning any particular term, THEN only we carefully construct links from each technical term to a notional article that expands on that term. Each article would have links to any other article as required; the structure would be a far more general graph than a simple tree. Each article in turn would be another root article in its own right, and would stop as far as practical at every technical term that could be explained in another article without making nonsense of the flow of logic.
Then continue the process (sometimes in series, sometimes in parallel) until we have covered the field adequately, with only the gluttons for punishment still busy at the coal face. By that time:
Comments? Jon JonRichfield ( talk) 14:16, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
Yes Petter, you got that right for sure!!! Like you, I'll help where I can, but if everyone says: "No way, I can't spend three quarters of my working time on such a thing," I for one will not criticise. But it is a beautiful thought all the same. WP is full of near-parallel articles that ideally should have been parts of projects structured in such ways. JonRichfield ( talk) 17:36, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
Sorry to ask this as it seems trivial. Still, these concerns are irksome.
In looking through many of the treatments on WP of taxonomic families and above, I have noticed that the grammar varies. In particular, I see some treatments that have singular verbs and others that have plural verbs, as in "Limnanthaceae are a family" vs. "Limnanthaceae is a family".
My understanding from the ICBN (and the ICZN too) is that suprageneric taxa are always plural, unless you are referring to the word itself. That at least is how the examples in the ICBN, article 18, seem to have it. APG, Stearn's Botanical Latin, the instructions to authors in the Botanical Journal of the Linnaean Society and Gledhill's The Names of Plants all agree. However, many published sources and WP do not. I suspect many of the published sources are written by molecular people or others with no expertise in taxonomy, or by authors whose first language is not English.
The other issue is, I see a lot of variance in the use of a definite article before the taxon name, as in "The Limnanthaceae are a family" vs. "Limnanthaceae are a family". As a grad student, my major professor, who was fluent in Latin, instructed me never to use an article before a taxon as Latin does not have articles (they are implied) and so it is redundant. Some taxonomists seem never to use an article (e.g. the APG), but others (e.g. Cronquist) seem to use it. I wonder if there is any guideline here or is it merely a matter of taste?
I have looked for sources on this, and have come up with not much. So my two questions for all of you are:
I think that improper scientific usage makes WP look amateurish and unreliable, so I want to get other opinions about these trivial grammatical concerns before I edit these in my travels around WP. Thanks for any advice. Michaplot ( talk) 05:10, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
Here's an article that could be used to cover some of the history:
Sorry, don't have time to add anything myself. – Maky « talk » 17:53, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
Hello, I need a help from people with knowledge in systematics and taxonomy to discuss the Template:SysTax. This template was removed from the pages where it appears for discussion and improvment. Thanks Zorahia ( talk) 15:22, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
Dear All, just a short thought. In March 2014, I rpinted a copy of the English language Wikipedia entry "Systematics" and the last word at the end of the text for "Definition and relation with taxonomy" is "cladoendesis".
However, I have been unable to find a definition for "cladoendesis", therefore this might be a mistake for "cladogenesis" which does have a definition.
Therefore, please can this word be checked? I ask because on July 30th 2014 I looked at the current Wikipedia entry for "Systematics" and there has been no change. Plimsoleprinzip ( talk) 20:07, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
Who invented & introduce taxonomy didn't coined the term "taxonomy" it was given by de candolle😅😅😅😝😝 Krishnanshu yog ( talk) 18:54, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
There seems to be some sort of conflation between "branches" of phylogenetic trees and branches of the discipline which is confusing. The first two sentences say effectively nothing.
The three described "branches" of systematics - numerical, biochemical and experimental - are arguably not the way that people who write textbooks about systematics, such as E. O. Wiley, David Williams, Ward Wheeler, Pablo Goloboff, or I, would carve up the field. I am not sure what the cited "Systematics: Meaning, Branches and Its Application". Biology Discussion. 2016-05-27. Retrieved 2017-04-12 is (the linked web site says it is " an online platform to help students to share notes in Biology"), but it hardly seems an authoritative source.
Unlike some, I don't summarily delete other people's work from Wikipedia, but I suggest that this section could be deleted and the entry would not suffer. Abrower ( talk) 20:11, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Systematics article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
![]() | This ![]() It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||
|
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available
on the course page. Student editor(s):
Mjaquino,
Kmoleary87.
Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT ( talk) 10:37, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
I vote for redirecting to taxonomy if there are no other usages for the term. I kind of think there might be (non-biological), but I'm hard pressed to remember any of them. [user:Rgamble|Rgamble]]
I am working on an article on systematics as the study of multi-term systems as developed by John G Bennett. I did a page but then found that it did not exist![user:age blake]
Wasn't taxonomy about classification and name-giving taxa, and systematics the study of organisms' evolutionary relationships? The latter is a research program and the former a practice.
Quoting [1]:
Systematics: the science of organizing the history of organismal evolution the science of ordering Identification: recognizing the place of an organisms in an existing classification Use of dichotomous keys to identify organisms Taxonomy (Nomenclature): assigning scientific names according to legal rules Recall discussion of ICZN Green Book (see also Phylocode homepage) Classification: determining the evolutionary relationships of organisms A "Natural Classification" will accurately reflect phylogeny Classification should be a hypothesis of evolutionary relationships
Shouldn't we divide taxonomy from systematics more clearly? Even in the taxoboxes? I noticed that the French wikipedia put a 'classical classification' (with Linnean categories) in their taxoboxes as well as a 'phylogenetic classification' (without Linnean categories). This seems like a good practice. Maybe we can do the same at other wikipedia's but call these Taxonomy and Systematics respectively. Fedor 09:39, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
There is an article I am reading called, "Does Systematics Drive Old Testiment Exegesis? Or Can God Still Change His Mind? Questions of Method" by J. Daniel Hays. Not sure if this will help someone expand the article or put it somewhere else. I am still unsure what it means... 66.68.215.101 15:15, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
"Systematics is also of major importance in understanding conservation issues because it attempts to explain the Earth's biodiversity and could be used to assist in allocating limited means to preserve and protect endangered species, by looking at, for example, the genetic diversity among various taxa of plants or animals and deciding how much of that it is necessary to preserve."
Every word after "biodiversity" is unnecessary and is unrelated to the actual science of systematics. If that type of effort can be confirmed, then it deserves its own subsection.
I suggest an omission of this entire paragraph or at least a complete overhaul.
Systematics was added to this template. It is located under Life sciences. – Paine Ellsworth ( CLIMAX ) 21:17, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
I see a serious problem with this treatment as well as the biological classification article, which links to this one. That is that the program of classification is very distinct from program of systematics, but the differences are not discussed (accurately) in either article. In brief, classification is based on the essentialist notion that biological entities represent "types" and that these can be sorted into classes based on their properties. They become members of the class and representatives of that type. This typological treatment need not be evolutionary, though in modern biology it often strives to be. In any case, the program of classification is waning in biology as we realize that classification is largely arbitrary and does not accurately reflect the dynamic and historical nature of life and evolution. Systematization is the endeavor to put biological entities into a system of relationships, which in the case of modern biology are evolutionary relationships. The objects are ordered as connected parts of a whole.
Unfortunately, these articles make pronouncements about classification being a part of systematics (e.g. the very old (and dated) Raven et al. quote) rather than a fundamentally different endeavor. These distinctions, while present in the older literature among theorists, did not come into the fore as an issue until the 1990s.
I think both of these articles should be updated. While WP is not the place to advocate one program over the other, it is true (and supportable with references) that classification and systematics are distinctly different and the former is falling out of favor while the latter is waxing.
This is also a sticky issue in regards to taxonomy, as some taxonomists prefer traditional classification-based taxonomies, while some (mostly systematists) prefer a rankless, phylogenetic nomenclature. It seems that most biologists recognize that taxonomic schemes should be largely evolutionary, but there is debate about whether paraphyletic groups should be allowed and whether taxonomic schemes need to exactly reflect evolutionary history, and if so, how the taxonomic schemes might work (e.g. phylocode).
I plan to edit these two articles and see if others agree. Michaplot ( talk) 00:25, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
Peter--completely agreed, the difficult question is what to do about this. I have been hesitant to edit some of these articles as I am keenly sensitive to my own biases, so it would be good to have a counterpoint in that endeavor. It is also hard to know where to begin.
As for the bigger issues, I think you have proven my point! I don't think "real" is a big problem to define in the narrow materialist sense. (I would say that a natural entity is real if it would exist in the absence of people.) In fact, the Mishler chapter you cited supports what I am arguing here. Mishler says in this chapter, "species properly defined are [emphasis Mishler's] real entities, but not uniquely real." What he is arguing is that species have no special status as a level and that species seem special because they are typically the most easily defined smallest inclusive group in a set of nested monophyletic groups (that is, below the level of species there is reticulation.) I remember discussing this with Mishler when I was a student, and he was keen on pointing out that an individual liverwort might fragment giving rise to a population of individuals all genetically derived from an original individual. This was a monophyletic group in his estimation. So his argument seems to be that species have no special status as there may be monophyletic groups smaller than species. So he sees the problem as a taxon problem--defining the smallest monophyletic group and naming it, if we think it is relevant to give it a name.
Mishler answers the question, "Are species real?" by claiming that, "all working biologists today think that the answer to [that] question is yes: species are real entities in some sense (although the grouping criterion considered to be the basis for their reality varies....)" And therein is the rub. Essentialist notions of species and other taxa are at the heart of classification. Systematics, on the other hand, despite being widely misconstrued, is about mapping, the pattern of evolution and does not inherently suggest a classification scheme. As Mishler suggests, we don't even have to give every lineage a name if it is not important to communicate about it.
As for who all these typologist are, they are legion. I can send you names if you want, but nearly every taxonomist who dabbles in classification is a typologist. My reading of Mayr, contrary to what you say, is not that he a defender of traditional classification and was opposed to cladistics (he coined the term). I think Mayr attempted to reconcile phenetics (another term he coined) with cladistics. He thought he should include both similarity of features and genealogy in a classification (he thought of himself as an evolutionary taxonomist, and such represented an initial attempt to reconcile tradition Linnaean taxonomy with evolution). He was a pioneer, but I think the thinking has evolved away from classification and phenetics altogether. His student Rober O'Hara argues convincingly that classification is not even viable for biological entities where it might be for non-biological entities.
As for a shared gene pool, Mayr was quick to point out that populations could be identified as part of the same species if they could potentially share genes. As I said, nature is messy and a ring species is a fascinating example of why essentialism does not serve biology. It is easy to tell that whale is a different species than a petunia, but different species of whale may not be easy to distinguish. A ring species may be impossible. These are incipient species as they have not achieved reproductive isolation. Still, these examples only prove the rule. I doubt if any botanist doubts that petals exist, but what about when petals grade into stamen or sepals. In those instances, it is hard to say what is a petal and what is not. This does not call into question the existence of petals as a genetic and morphological reality, it only shows we can't assume nature is working from a mold of an essential prototype of petal. The same can be said for any aspect of nature. Male and female sexes are undeniable, and yet in some cases the designation is obscure, even among humans. Don't confuse our difficulty in distinguishing what is going on with the idea that what is going on is not "real".
Finally, as for your "but", I would say that if a higher taxon is phylogenetically based, it must have at least one synapomorphy. If it is only DNA sequence characters, so be it. We can simply say that the particular group has been identified by molecular analyses. Some clades discovered by DNA are certainly counterintuitive in terms of the appearance of the members within them, but often subsequent analysis, with the benefit of hindsight, does reveal some theme or thread (inferior ovaries in Asparagales?).
I am enthusiastically in favor of focusing plant group articles on lineages with biological features rather than on taxonomic groups. The taxonomy can be included in the article but should not be primary. However, I have already had a user (Rkitko) question me about such changes. It may be a messy fight. Michaplot ( talk) 22:13, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
Some thoughts, or if you prefer, lack of thoughts where thoughts are needed. What would one call a thing like that: a question? Well, never mind... Here some of the slots anyway, arising as I scan the recent exchanges:
I see that some of what I have said seems compatible with some of Peter C's remarks, not that I would claim to be representing his points in any form acceptable to him.
(Not that I agree, of course…;-) )
OK, I had intended to work through the whole correspondence, but that won't work! Let's give it a rest for the moment. Cheers, Jon JonRichfield ( talk) 17:01, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
As Peter C suggests, there are several issues to consider.
Speaking as possibly the only non-taxonomist/non-systematist in the thread, please tolerate a heartfelt plea before getting too deep into actual writing. The plea is motivated by the fact that neither the facts nor the opinions lend themselves to the production of a monolithic document (yet!) The heartfeeling is motivated by having seen no end of projects where there never were the time or resources to do it right, but always was time and money to do it over (yet again falling foul of the same traps as before!)
The plea: For heavens' sakes let's do it top down! Let someone (or several in parallel) produce a skeleton article that if (hypothetically) expanded, would satisfy all parties and all readers, sophisticated in the subject matter or not. This article would be at most a couple of thousand words, or even a couple of hundred if some Medawar reincarnation were to materialise, who could name all the major subject themes in proper context, but without elaboration, maybe even without definition (details to be hammered out later. There might even be two types of expansions, simple, and professional... details details!)
Right! When everyone is happy with that skeleton (or root node or whatever you might call it or however you might construct it) not counting all the material he is bursting to add concerning any particular term, THEN only we carefully construct links from each technical term to a notional article that expands on that term. Each article would have links to any other article as required; the structure would be a far more general graph than a simple tree. Each article in turn would be another root article in its own right, and would stop as far as practical at every technical term that could be explained in another article without making nonsense of the flow of logic.
Then continue the process (sometimes in series, sometimes in parallel) until we have covered the field adequately, with only the gluttons for punishment still busy at the coal face. By that time:
Comments? Jon JonRichfield ( talk) 14:16, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
Yes Petter, you got that right for sure!!! Like you, I'll help where I can, but if everyone says: "No way, I can't spend three quarters of my working time on such a thing," I for one will not criticise. But it is a beautiful thought all the same. WP is full of near-parallel articles that ideally should have been parts of projects structured in such ways. JonRichfield ( talk) 17:36, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
Sorry to ask this as it seems trivial. Still, these concerns are irksome.
In looking through many of the treatments on WP of taxonomic families and above, I have noticed that the grammar varies. In particular, I see some treatments that have singular verbs and others that have plural verbs, as in "Limnanthaceae are a family" vs. "Limnanthaceae is a family".
My understanding from the ICBN (and the ICZN too) is that suprageneric taxa are always plural, unless you are referring to the word itself. That at least is how the examples in the ICBN, article 18, seem to have it. APG, Stearn's Botanical Latin, the instructions to authors in the Botanical Journal of the Linnaean Society and Gledhill's The Names of Plants all agree. However, many published sources and WP do not. I suspect many of the published sources are written by molecular people or others with no expertise in taxonomy, or by authors whose first language is not English.
The other issue is, I see a lot of variance in the use of a definite article before the taxon name, as in "The Limnanthaceae are a family" vs. "Limnanthaceae are a family". As a grad student, my major professor, who was fluent in Latin, instructed me never to use an article before a taxon as Latin does not have articles (they are implied) and so it is redundant. Some taxonomists seem never to use an article (e.g. the APG), but others (e.g. Cronquist) seem to use it. I wonder if there is any guideline here or is it merely a matter of taste?
I have looked for sources on this, and have come up with not much. So my two questions for all of you are:
I think that improper scientific usage makes WP look amateurish and unreliable, so I want to get other opinions about these trivial grammatical concerns before I edit these in my travels around WP. Thanks for any advice. Michaplot ( talk) 05:10, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
Here's an article that could be used to cover some of the history:
Sorry, don't have time to add anything myself. – Maky « talk » 17:53, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
Hello, I need a help from people with knowledge in systematics and taxonomy to discuss the Template:SysTax. This template was removed from the pages where it appears for discussion and improvment. Thanks Zorahia ( talk) 15:22, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
Dear All, just a short thought. In March 2014, I rpinted a copy of the English language Wikipedia entry "Systematics" and the last word at the end of the text for "Definition and relation with taxonomy" is "cladoendesis".
However, I have been unable to find a definition for "cladoendesis", therefore this might be a mistake for "cladogenesis" which does have a definition.
Therefore, please can this word be checked? I ask because on July 30th 2014 I looked at the current Wikipedia entry for "Systematics" and there has been no change. Plimsoleprinzip ( talk) 20:07, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
Who invented & introduce taxonomy didn't coined the term "taxonomy" it was given by de candolle😅😅😅😝😝 Krishnanshu yog ( talk) 18:54, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
There seems to be some sort of conflation between "branches" of phylogenetic trees and branches of the discipline which is confusing. The first two sentences say effectively nothing.
The three described "branches" of systematics - numerical, biochemical and experimental - are arguably not the way that people who write textbooks about systematics, such as E. O. Wiley, David Williams, Ward Wheeler, Pablo Goloboff, or I, would carve up the field. I am not sure what the cited "Systematics: Meaning, Branches and Its Application". Biology Discussion. 2016-05-27. Retrieved 2017-04-12 is (the linked web site says it is " an online platform to help students to share notes in Biology"), but it hardly seems an authoritative source.
Unlike some, I don't summarily delete other people's work from Wikipedia, but I suggest that this section could be deleted and the entry would not suffer. Abrower ( talk) 20:11, 25 January 2023 (UTC)