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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)
"This is sometimes known as molecular systematics and is doing well, likely at the expense of taxonomy (Wheeler, 2004)." - This contradicts itself; while molecular systematics (as a technology) does not really plays the role for alpha taxonomy it does for systematics (as sciences), it is just one viable method among others to gather data for alpha taxonomy. I'd rather say it invigorates alpha taxonomy, especially in the long run. What Wheeler seems to complain about is rather lax standards due to the early 2000s (decade) trend to consider molecular evidence alone (see also molecular barcoding debate) Dysmorodrepanis 03:01, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
The update doesn't make much more sense: "This is sometimes known as molecular systematics which is becoming increasingly more common, perhaps at the expense of traditional morphological taxonomy." Morphological taxonomy is conceptually invalid, therefore of course more scientifically rigorous methods are becoming common at its expense. --173.230.96.116 (talk) 02:09, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
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)
That would depend on the relatedness (or not) of the two groups. Suppose (purely hypothetically) that some living (or fossil) micro-organisms were found on Mars (or Europa, or Titan, etc). If evidence could be found that they are descendants of life on Earth (or vice versa, or both have a common non-Terrestrial origin) then they would belong (somewhere) in the same tree of life. (See [panspermia].) The fact that they lived on different planets would not affect their classification (any more than being from different continents, islands, river valleys on Earth would.) If they had no common ancestor with life on Earth, then they would represent an entirely separate abiogenesis event. The tree of life would become a forest. If so, it would be possible that their system of genetic inheritance might not be based on RNA/DNA at all.
Similarly, if it could be shown that life on earth had evolved twice (i.e. that there were two abiogenesis events in Earth's history, and examples of both survived either as living organisms or fossils) then the existing tree of life would have to be split into two separate trees. It is known, I believe, from DNA analysis that all existing organisms studied on Earth had a single original ancestor, so this is very, very unlikely. The point is that all organisms share the same tree because they are all believed to be related to each other. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.159.89.88 (talk) 10:23, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
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)
April 10 edit included comment "Minus curious and unreferenced statement about levels (what tradition? where?)", and removal of: "Traditionally there are seven major levels of taxonomy (though alpha taxonomy traditionally focuses more on the specific and infraspecific level): Kingdom, Phylum (for animals) or Division (for plants and fungi), Class, Order, Family, Genus, and Species."
"Curious and unreferenced statements" about taxaonomic levels and traditions?? OK, I'll bite: http://www.bgbm.org/iapt/nomenclature/code/SaintLouis/0007Ch1Art003.htm
These ranks are absolutely "traditional" in biological taxonomy. As to whether they belong in this article or not, I leave that to others to decide. I found prior versions of that paragraph getting carried away with higher-level classification (even to the point of putting "domain" in too, though it has little or nothing to do with alpha taxonomy per se!), and focused it a little more on the species group arena where much "alpha taxonomy" takes place. On second thought, I do think this information belongs here. I'll try to phrase it a little less "curiously." WhyAskWhyNot 01:49, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
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)
Maybe not. 96.10.251.86 (talk) 20:49, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
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)
The chapter "auctor" should be reworded, the term "auctor" is not widely used. This seems to be some insider slang rather than a widely used and accepted term. The person to describe a taxonomic name is commonly called the author (see author (zoology)). It is also the term used in the ICZN Code, in the Code's Glossary the term "auctor" is referred to as a Latin expression for which the English translation is "author".
"Panthera tigris, (L 1758)" violates the ICZN Code (no comma between name and author = Art. 51.2; authors shall not be abbreviated = Appendix B 12), the whole passage should be deleted. --FranciscoWelterSchultes (talk) 14:26, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
The whole section called "auctors" has very little applicability under "Alpha taxonomy"... It has been written with a decidedly (and oddly) botanical slant... not that there is anything wrong with that in an appropriate context, but there is no reason to clutter up a general "alpha taxonomy" entry with kingdom-specific nomenclatural trivia. WhyAskWhyNot (talk) 07:08, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
I am not sure you're ever going to come up with a stable and accepted definition of alpha taxonomy, party because the term is used in many (loose) ways, partly because views of it have continued to morph (with descent) over time, and partly because it is a relatively casual term to start with. I personally feel it is not well represented now on Wikipedia, but it might best end up as a chapter or two under biological taxonomy...!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by WhyAskWhyNot (talk • contribs) 07:25, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
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)
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)
Trimmed and merged. The other language wikipedias might not be appropriately linked, but I think there was rather a mess with the links anyway, due to the existence of biological classification as well as taxonomy (biology), and the lack of any concept of taxonomy (general) in some of the languages. I don't think this makes that situation any worse. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 18:06, 20 March 2014 (UTC)