Sooo if I wanted to introduce any interesting classification systems (beyond putting a cladogram and the Linnaean trees on the same graph, since they seem be kinda-sorta-mostly talking about the same leaves) I'd have to use, in addition to nodes-which-are-species, nodes-which-are-bigger-than-species and nodes-which-are-smaller-than-species. But (*shakes sleeve*) that seems okay. I mean cladograms (if I've got this right) also have nodes-which-are-bigger-than-species in order to have branches in the graph.
(How weird. "Cladogram" is in my computer's dictionary, but it shows up as a misspelled word in Safari's edit box. The text edit box must be using a different dictionary.)
... so referring to these super- or sub- nodes would be difficult, unless they were named -- and naming them would be unhelpful, because then you'd be creating another set of names with which to confuse people. Maybe it would be okay if instead of having actual names, these nodes were named in relation to their nearest species (so they had many potential names), such as "the group along the 'small colonies' edge from Macroderma gigas". That way you could have classification systems that don't terminate with species but which do use the same names.
cladograms (if I've got this right) also have nodes-which-are-bigger-than-species in order to have branches in the graph.
The nodes at which the branches come off other branches count as "speciation events", which are not meant to be bigger than species. They're more sort of different from species. For one thing, a speciation event happens almost instananeously. I guess there's a good analogy with a singularity in physics.
(How weird. "Cladogram" is in my computer's dictionary, but it shows up as a misspelled word in Safari's edit box. The text edit box must be using a different dictionary.)
Yes, that does seem really weird.
... so referring to these super- or sub- nodes would be difficult, unless they were named -- and naming them would be unhelpful, because then you'd be creating another set of names with which to confuse people.
IMO, it would be just fine for them to have names, as long as the namems didn't sound like species names. Your idea of using whole phrases would certainly satisfy my constraint.
Oh, I meant that "more than a species" thing just in the graphical sense that each speciation event is the root of a subtree containing species or speciation events, so in some sense that ancestor speciation event "contains" all the future events. Now that I think about it, that's a weird way to talk about "contains" -- like saying that a morning drinking-tea event "contains" subsequent alertness and visit-the-bathroom events. But I don't usually drink tea instantaneously.
(How weird. "Cladogram" is in my computer's dictionary, but it shows up as a misspelled word in Safari's edit box. The text edit box must be using a different dictionary.)
... so referring to these super- or sub- nodes would be difficult, unless they were named -- and naming them would be unhelpful, because then you'd be creating another set of names with which to confuse people. Maybe it would be okay if instead of having actual names, these nodes were named in relation to their nearest species (so they had many potential names), such as "the group along the 'small colonies' edge from Macroderma gigas". That way you could have classification systems that don't terminate with species but which do use the same names.
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The nodes at which the branches come off other branches count as "speciation events", which are not meant to be bigger than species. They're more sort of different from species. For one thing, a speciation event happens almost instananeously. I guess there's a good analogy with a singularity in physics.
(How weird. "Cladogram" is in my computer's dictionary, but it shows up as a misspelled word in Safari's edit box. The text edit box must be using a different dictionary.)
Yes, that does seem really weird.
... so referring to these super- or sub- nodes would be difficult, unless they were named -- and naming them would be unhelpful, because then you'd be creating another set of names with which to confuse people.
IMO, it would be just fine for them to have names, as long as the namems didn't sound like species names. Your idea of using whole phrases would certainly satisfy my constraint.
We could ask a real expert.
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I guess we could ask a real expert.
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