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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Scott_sg" data-source="post: 1812673" data-attributes="member: 81463">Personally I think if biologists stopped arguing about subspecies...alot of biologists would be out of work.Fundamentally though (my opinion), this is something I have seen get worse from the eighties on, alot of the problem results from trying to mix cladistics (at least as a thought process) with Linnean rank based approaches.Herpetology is a good example, cladistics is wonderful at showing relationships, but as humans, snakes and lizards are much easier to understand. That might seem a bit off topic, but what I am getting at is a push to reconcile an evolutionary approach to systematics to a more intuitive approach (which admittedly is often wrong but works). "I saw a snake" is much easier for most people than I saw a highly developed monitor lizard (Varanidae - from memory) that lost it's legs - is much easier.So to me it is simple using the right tool for the job, once that hurdle is overcome then there is no problem with subspecies. But trying to fit square pegs into round holes never works.Once you get away from trying to force too much on a rank system it is fine. Subspecies makes sense since it is just a description of the current state of things. With no real information on past or future. The danger is just trying to read too much into it. So it is simply a matter of keeping it in context.As scientists it makes sense to record - and organise - as much information as possible, eg. blue balls in the blue container, red in the red container. Ignoring phenotype arguments for now... So if you have a red ball with a touch of blue - do you make a new container for it? Throw them in the red container? or say they are almost red, so they must be closer to red...put them in a little box in the red container. That makes sense to most people, but if you use a phylogenetic approach and try that, suddenly all the balls are in the same container. You have learnt a great deal more scientifically about your balls, but have gained nothing in terms of communication. To me it is just a matter of using the right tool for the job. Elevation of everything to species level is scientifically ambiguous - or plain wrong. And dropping the subspecies loses too much information. If I see a good picture of Malurus cyaneus - Superb Fairy-wren, I can normally spot where it is from straight away based on phenotype. To say they are all the same is a disservice and to elevate them all to species would be absurd. Well that made sense to me, but I doubt anyone else.End incoherent ranting...Scott.</blockquote>

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