Posted by vvvddd on February 19, 2003 at 23:03:25:
In Reply to: a point of view or what does it take to be...? posted by Wulf on February 14, 2003 at 05:28:45:
Taxonomy, in all forms, is a human attempt to put a constantly changing, inherently chaotic system into an order that we can try to understand. Given this chaos, different people classify different organisms in different ways. This is especially true when different people use different methods for classification. Kluge used morphological characters exclusively for his Pythoninae classification. Others have used molecular charactersitics, or phenetic (color and pattern usually) characteristics. The problem is, the different systems don't always agree perfectly.
Add to this the debate over the accuracy of different classification levels, especially below the order and family levels.
The fact is, classifications will probably change constantly over time. Its just one person's conclusion reached from the science conducted, good or bad. Hopefully techniques and guidelines are improving to the point that we reach solid conclusions, but that may not happen.
My opinion,
Van
