Re: Role of Systematics (posted for N. Monks)

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Date: Fri, 29 Sep 1995 17:44:52 +0100
To: paleonet-owner@nhm.ac.uk
From: N.Monks@nhm.ac.uk (Neale Monks)
Subject: Re: Role of Systematics
Status: O

Dear All,

Part of the problem with systematics in the general sphere of biology is
that the 'species' is not an SI unit. It means different things to
different people, especially if one is a palaeontologist and the other a
neotologist.

For a biologist, many species (especially for those in groups like
graptolites or ammonites, where the diversity could be as much an artefact
of the alacrity with which workers study the groups as anything else) is
the suspicion that the species concept of each discipline is about as
similar as a degree Celsius and a degree Farenheit! Measuring the same
thing, yes, but the numbers might not really be comparable!

Just a thought....


Neale.


>From  Neale Monks' PowerBook, at...

Department of Palaeontology, Natural History Museum, London, SW7 5BD
Internet: N.Monks@nhm.ac.uk, Telephone: 0171-938-9007

"...now Nature is having the last laugh. The freaky stuff is turning out to
be the mathematics of the natural world"

from 'Arcadia', by Tom Stoppard