Talk:Thorne system

The "version at the Norton Brown Herbarium, Maryland" is based on an unverifiable (and possibly unreliable) secondary source: a professor's unpublished, unreferenced, undated, and apparently out-of-date lecture notes. Reveal's version differs from the one published most recently by Thorne (2000), which is the one which should be used as it presumably reflects his current taxonomic opinions. MrDarwin 15:19, 3 April 2006 (UTC)


 * At least the source is provided. Also it is verifiable (against the publication). As to the question which version should be presented, that would appear to be an entirely different kettle of fish. Which of the several versions is the most interesting? And why? This is not necessarily the latest version. His current taxonomic opinions may not actually be noteworthy. There is a shortage of data here ("presumably" is not much to go on). Brya 17:09, 3 April 2006 (UTC)


 * The "version at the Norton Brown Herbarium, Maryland" is a source? In what sense? These are a professor's unpublished lecture notes. Please tell me which publication I should verify it against. As far as I could find, Reveal's lecture notes do not actually cite any of Thorne's publications, and as you know, Thorne has published several versions of his classification. From Reveal's undated and unreferenced notes we have no way of knowing just which version of Thorne's classification he was referring to.
 * I believe any scientist who has published modifications of his or her own ideas should have his or her most recent ideas presented; the most recent publication it is the only way we can determine, as nearly as possible, just what that scientist thinks. (And I suspect that most scientists would tell you that their latest ideas are more noteworthy than their oldest ideas!) MrDarwin 17:57, 3 April 2006 (UTC)


 * As to the last point, there is a rather famous example of a Mr Darwin who kept publishing revised editions of the Origin with the later editions being compromises to established belief. As to whether something on the web is unpublished, well I don't want to go there. Certainly this particular site (the site that these pages belong to) has been up for a long time and is very well known. So yes, there is a degree of uncertainty here, but it is a known quantity, and has been for quite awhile. If you want to enter a version that was published on paper, and that you can vouch for, don't let me stop you. Personally I don't really trust anything that I did not verify personally. I know that the Wettstein system that I entered is sound, which is more than I would be willing to say for the Cronquist system. I am only hoping that the latter is correct. Brya 18:14, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, but I don't believe Darwin's basic ideas changed much over the course of those editions, although he did try to explain his ideas in different ways in the different editions. And of course in many cases to avoid confusion it is necessary to explicitly cite which edition one is referring to. But at least the guy is dead so we don't have to worry about his body of work changing anymore!
 * If I took the time to put the right information in, whenever I come across such cases, I would not have any life away from Wikipedia! I guess the real question is whether bad information, or outdated information, is better than no information. Personally, in most cases I don't think it is but in lieu of taking the time to laboriously correct somebody else's sloppiness or laziness (and long copy-and-paste lists are one of my major pet peeves), rather than delete the information (which tends to piss people off) I've tried to qualify it in some way, or at least make a note on the discussion page. MrDarwin 20:56, 3 April 2006 (UTC)


 * As to correcting, I share your basic attitude. As to the question if in this case the information is good enough to be included, that is a relatively easy matter. I do consider myself competent of making an informed decision here. I am quite willing to bet that as to accuracy this information is among the 10% most accurate items in Wikipedia. It looks quite accurate enough to me to be useful for any purpose that the user is likely to put it to.


 * BTW. What makes you so sure that Thorne's "basic ideas changed much over the course of" the several versions of his system? Brya 06:44, 4 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I have compared the 1992 and 2000 versions of Thorne's classification (the latter is not available on the web), not for each and every family but enough to know that he did change his ideas on many family circumscriptions. In many cases he has accepted newly circumscribed families on the basis of recently published molecular phylogenies (e.g., he now accepts Malvaceae s.l., which is why I took Berton to task for including Thorne in his list of systematists who accepted Malvaceae s.s.) and in many ways his 2000 classification more closely resembles that of APG II. Since the acceptance and synonymy of particular families and their circumscriptions are the whole point of his published classifications, I think changes in his classification scheme (and his apparent acceptance of molecular results, which were in their infancy when he published his 1992 version) do indeed reflect changes in his basic ideas. MrDarwin 13:14, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Thorne pretty much says it himself in the abstract of the 2000 version; it's no longer available on the web but this [cached version] is still available. "This latest revision of my classification and geography of the Dicotyledons replaces my 1992 review and is necessitated by the plethora of new information that has become available about the classification of the Angiospermae, especially in the currently popular approaches of cladistic, particulate, and molecular taxonomy. This review attempts to bring up to date our knowledge of the dicotyledons, with emphasis on new information published in the last decade. Nearly 600 such recent books, monographs, and other botanical papers are cited in the Introduction, listed primarily by the botanical discipline that they represent, and in the explanation of the classification. Many more are listed in the more than 2500 references cited. The numerous changes in the classification created by this new information are listed by subclass and superorder with pertinent references." MrDarwin 13:22, 4 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I still don't really see where you are going with this. So, Thorne published more than one version or more than one system. However, the article does state this. One of those versions was published in 1992 and the version given here is either the 1992 version or the 1992 version, updated in 1999. This means that the article does not give the 2000 version/system. That may be a pity (I don't really know what I am missing). Actually, I don't think that if both the 1992 and 2000 version /system were in wikipedia they should be in the same entry: they would each deserve a separate entry. As nobody yet entered the 2000 version/system I don't see the immediate need to split the article in "Thorne system (1992)" and "Thorne system (2000)", although I suppose it would not hurt to do so. Would splitting make you happier? That would be easy to do. I don't mind.


 * I also don't see any connection between what you say about "basic ideas", "families" and the abstract you provided. Thorne indicates big changes in his higher level systematics, going from two subclasses (dicots and monocots) in 1992 to seven subclasses of dicotyledons in 2000 (with dicotyledons apparently not a formal taxon?). I would have said a system is more about higher level groupings than about family delimitations. However, all the above does not touch upon the basic ideas of Thorne. What are the basic ideas of Thorne, and why is he publishing a system at all?


 * All in all, this entry on Thorne is very short on basic information about the major considerations used by Thorne, his basic ideas, his background, and lots of other matters. Well, that is the way it is, and there appears to be not much point in complaining about the information that is there. The information that is there, such as it is, is complete unto itself, a pretty respectable source is given (actually two respectable sources). This source is available online, and can easily be checked by any user. As wikipedia entries go this is pretty solid. So, it would be nice to have an additional entry "Thorne system (2000)" (and "Thorne system (2006)"). We don't have them. Maybe we will have, someday. Wikipedia is missing more than 95% of the information on plants that I would expect to be there. There is little point on complaining about that?  Brya 15:36, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Thorne systems
Given that there are many Thorne systems it does not make sense to restrict this to 1992, I don't think any other systems of classification do that. I will move the page for consistency --Michael Goodyear (talk) 12:55, 4 January 2016 (UTC)