Re: [RRG] Re: Taxonomy: 25 questions

[Robin Whittle <rw@firstpr.com.au>]

Hi Bill and Lixia,

Bill, I will read and respond to your TRRP details later.  Thanks
for filling in the gaps in my understanding.

Lixia, you wrote:

> Hi Robin,
> 
> Since your subject line is "taxonomy", I'll offer a short clarification
> reply first, without getting into the specifics of the 25 questions.
> The goal of the taxonomy draft is to explain how solutions may work.
> So we gain a full understanding of the solution space.
> 
> We tried hard to avoid judgment calls (e.g. which one is "practice" or
> "impractical"), though we did mention (as a fact) issues like which one
> may require host changes, which ones tried to avoid it.
> 
> I am not sure what is the best word to describe the 25 questions here.
> To my understanding, they don't seem to describe a taxonomy (maybe
> "evaluation" questions?)

I think it is OK if we have differing views on what a "taxonomy" is.
 I didn't look it up, but I wanted to find a set of questions which
illustrated the commonalities and differences between the five
potentially practical proposals.  Before that, I used two questions
to weed out the proposals which I think are definitely not practical
in the foreseeable future - which I don't want to spend any more
time thinking about.

My line of questions was pretty much like picking up seashells and
finding some have spirals, some are bivalves, some spirals are of
different forms, some bivalves are symmetrical, others not etc.

I was am very interested in the details and principles of these
actual proposals - and of any other potentially practical proposals
someone comes up with.

I think you were trying to come up with a high-level set of
distinctions, without getting too involved in the actual details of
the specimens on the slab.

I am not saying your approach has no value - just that I found it
didn't relate much to the things which I think are most interesting
and important.  You can see from my questions and answers what I
think is interesting and important.  Ideally, other people will
think of questions I missed - and correct any mistakes I made trying
to answer questions about other proposals.

Perhaps your approach may illuminate parts of the solution space of
which there are no specimens - like deciding it would be possible
for a triple-shell shellfish to exist, despite all the ones found so
far having one or two shells.  That could be very valuable indeed.

  Cheers

    - Robin


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