Talk:Alpha taxonomy

message: This page needs some explanation of why alpha taxonomy is called alpha taxonomy, and how it differs from other forms or schools or branches of taxonomy. DGG 03:00, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I beg your pardon? "Conceptually invalid"? You are aware that DNA data is unavailable for the wast majority of organisms, and will remain so for almost all fossil forms? You do know that genetic information needs to be interpreted and understood in order to make phylogenies, just like morphological data? As far as I know, most serious taxonomists use bout sets of data. The sentence is fine as it is. Petter Bøckman (talk) 12:16, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: alpha taxonomy

message: Suppose we find a new type of organism on a completely different planet.  What will happen in terms of taxonomic classifications?  Will  a new domain be added here, or will there be a higher taxon added to the alpha taxonomic system superior to domain, indicating planet of origin? Scetoaux 05:53, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Taxonomic Classification for Non-Earth Organisms? 

message: Seems like the rank grouping "domain" has little to do with alpha taxonomy per se, and more to do with bolting on a higher-level grouping that few alpha taxonomists actually use... but perhaps others disagree... Certainly I wouldn't call it traditionally within the "domain" [pun intended] of alpha taxonomy!!! My understanding of alpha taxonomy is it is more tied in to the species group level, though certainly in generic groupings and with cascading changes upwards... But what alpha taxonomist works at the domain level?!?
WhyAskWhyNot 03:17, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Addition of "domain"? 

message: Maybe someone could add to the article somewhere what my bio teacher said as a mnemonic phrase:
Kinky People Cry Out For Good Sex 
alternative being:
Kinky People Can Often Find Good Sex
68.115.90.55 22:52, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mnemonic Phrase 

message: I REALLY dislike the title of this article.  It looks like the web taxonomy definition is has taken over Taxonomy article.  At this point, discussion of biological taxonomy is pretty minimal there (yet based on the comments at Talk:Taxonomy, many people expect it to focus more on biological taxonomy. In my opinion, this article should either be renamed Taxonomy (biological), or should merged with Taxonomy.  An article on Alpha Taxonomy is not necessarily inappropriate, but I see no mention of beta or gamma taxonomy anywhere on Wikipedia (it seems like an overall article on taxonomy, defining alpha, beta and gamma would exist before alpha taxonomy gets its own article.  Certainly, there should be some discussion of the meaning of the word "alpha" in relation to "beta" and "gamma" in this article.
"For a long time the term "taxonomy" was unambiguous, but over time it has gained several other meanings and thus became potentially confusing. To some extent it is being replaced, in its original (and narrow) meaning, by "alpha taxonomy""  I disagree with this assertion, and would like to see it supported with a citation.  Biologists still use the word taxonomy, although there certainly is a trend to say to "systematics" rather than "taxonomy" (in the beta taxonomy sense). 
The term "alpha taxonomy" is certainly used by biologist, but it's very technical-there are 25,000 Google hits for "biological taxonomy", and 9230 for "alpha taxonomy" (and surely many more hits for "taxonomy" in relation to biology that wouldn't match the strict phrase "biological taxonomy"
In several places, this article confuses "alpha taxonomy" with "taxonomy" in a broad sense; e.g. "...science of defining, describing and categorising organisms.  "Categorising" is beta taxonomy by definition.  Discussion of taxonomic ranks is also irrelevant to alpha taxonomy (except in so far as binomial nomenclature involves the use of 2 ranks).
Note that the Taxonomy article describes nested hierarchies (in a variety of disciplines), while the Alpha Taxonomy article purports to only discuss naming of organisms.  In short, the "systematic" side of taxonomy is not appropriate to an article on "Alpha taxonomy", yet the current "Taxonomy" article largely ignores biology but deals with the "systematic" side of taxonomies.
In short, Alpha Taxonomy is NOT a synonym for Taxonomy in a biological sense.  It's misleading for this article to treat it as such (Unsigned comment added by User:63.78.97.2 at 03:38 18 December 2007)
:i think merge is a good idea. 79.101.174.192 (talk) 07:36, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, absolutely (see also question by DGG in the beginning of the talk page). This should be merged to Biological classification or better Biological taxonomy. "Biological classification" is insufficiently specific because there are many different types of biological objects to classify. This is actually Biological classification of species.Biophys (talk) 20:00, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: From what I have read of the use of the word (Fortey's Dry Store Room No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum) Alpha taxonomy is about finding and describing species, and classifying them with their nearest relatives (typically at the genus level). This article does not reflect this. Is it Fortey who's wrong, does the word have different meanings on each side of Atlantic, or is it just not very well written? If on-one objects, I will rewrite. Petter Bøckman (talk) 18:55, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I thought that "alpha taxonomy" is a rarely used synonym of "taxonomy" (the biological classification of species). Regardless, rewrite is very welcome.Biophys (talk) 22:34, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I have rewritten the article a bit, I hope it has legs to stand on its own now. Petter Bøckman (talk) 22:13, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge with Taxonomy?/New Title 

message: The sentence For the new species to be valid, the formal description must be published in a scientific journal is marked with a "dubious" tag. Isn't the rules fairly clear on the matter of publication, despite what constitutes a scientific journal being up for discussion? Petter Bøckman (talk) 13:31, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Since there has been no reply, I'll remove the tag.Petter Bøckman (talk) 13:43, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Validity of new species

message: I've added a paragraph about the original meaning of the term "alpha taxonomy". As far as I know, that is the sense in which the term is still used by professional taxonomists, although some do add microscopic examination of cytology, including chromosome counts, chemistry, and responses to various biological stains to alpha taxonomic methods. (Those latter techniques were less developed in Turrill's time, and chromosome counting and subsequently chemotaxonomy became very informative to taxonomy a few decades later.) My reading of the paper by Quentin Wheeler that is cited is consistent with Turrill's original definition. Unfortunately, I don't have access to the book by Richard Fortey (2008. Dry Store Room No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum), which is cited on the page. My preference would be to drastically trim this page to little more than Turrill's definition; almost all the other material is, or should be, duplicated elsewhere. The last paragraph seems to me to mostly revolve around the sentence "Higher ranking taxa (including clades and grades) mostly are the province of "beta taxonomy", more commonly called systematics.", which is unsourced and I think is dubious. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 18:33, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed In my view alpha-taxonomy is concerned with the delineation of species. Nothing more. I can see value in linking this article to other articles on the other forms of taxonomy, but I see no need for repetition in doing so. So careful pruning it back to the original definition with appropriate links would seem adequate. Faendalimas talk 18:50, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

text: Support. However, the article also needs to clearly define alpha taxonomy in layperson language, ideally from several sources that concur, rather than rely heavily on esoteric nods to theoretical and undefined "omega" taxonomy (which I've never heard used in practice, but on searching seems to be used in a similarly unhelpful philosophical sense). The usage today in practice may indeed be different than Turill's definition, and relying too much on the original can confuse laypersons and scientists alike. Of course, clear, succinct, referenced explanations are needed, even if the reference is a simple dictionary of biology. I also think that beta diversity does need mentioning in respect to alpha taxonomy, since it is a widely used term. From what I understand, alpha is the description of a species (which need not invoke any evolutionary or classification hierarchy), while beta taxonomy is the sorting (be it Linnaean or cladistic) of alpha units, that themselves do not change based on classification. --Animalparty-- (talk) 21:06, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it would be better to make the relevant parts of this article into a section within Taxonomy (biology). There is no universally agreed definition of either term, and certainly not one that sharply separates them, but it does seem to me that "alpha taxonomy" is a topic within "biological taxonomy" and so would best be treated there. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:46, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds good to me, once trimmed it could fit well. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 13:19, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

text: Comment. I've added a 1965 citation which uses the term in the sense mentioned above, to mean delineation of species. It looks as if it is coining the term in that sense. (The text of the article mentions new techniques causing a spurt in the rate of descriptions.) Perhaps more citations are needed? Sminthopsis84 (talk) 13:19, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Drastic trimming proposal