Cladistic language concepts

[Ghiselin, Michael]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
          Dear Dr. DeLancey,
               Of course the fact that biological systematics had a
          long history before it became historical helps to explain a
          lot.  Common descent as you say was recognized pretty much
          from the outset in linguistics, and although there were some
          precursors it was Darwin who first made that abundantly
          clear to biologists.
               As to the articulated framework we biologists have
          developed, with its levels of family, order, class, phylum,
          etc., all we have is the names!  And the more we think about
          it the more we realize that the categories other than the
          species are subjective.  So there is no yardstick in biology
          either, but we have been behaving as if there were such a
          yardstick.  In my book, Metaphysics and the Origin of
          Species, I say that the main criteria for ranking at higher
          levels are ignorance, tradition, and bad metaphysics.  I am
          an expert on the classification of gastropods, and I can see
          no way to make an order of snails equivalent to an order of
          insects.  The entomologists I have spoken to about such
          matters seem to agree.
               Thanks again for the helpful comments.
          Michael Ghiselin
          Center for the History and Philosophy of Science
          California Academy of Sciences
          Golden Gate Park
          San Francisco, CA 94118