Books, Brochures, and Chapters>Book: Croizat , Léon (1962), Space, time, form, Retrieved on 2012-03-17Source Material [books.google.com]
Folksonomies: science Memes
17 MAR 2012
Shattered Glass as a Metaphor for Taxonomy
Let us suppose that we have laid on the table... [a] piece of glass... and let us homologize this glass to a whole order of plants or birds. Let us hit this glass a blow in such a manner as but to crack it up. The sectors circumscribed by cracks following the first blow may here be understood to represent families. Continuing, we may crack the glass into genera, species and subspecies to the point of finally having the upper right hand corner a piece about 4 inches square representing a sub-s...The smaller pieces you smash it into, the more specific the classification. TODO: I don't understand the "4 inches" part at the end concerning sub-species.