Hennig XVIII

[Tom DiBenedetto]

>christian thompson wrote:

>the real founder of cladistics is Steve FARRIS.

Actually I disagree. I think that the point of departure for
phylogenetic systematics, from the reigning paradigm of the time, was
the distinction between strict monophyly and paraphyly, based on
apomorphy and plesiomorphy, and the notion that classifications should
be based exclusively on the former, if they are to be phylogenetic.
This was Hennigs idea. Farris (and Kluge) deserve enormous credit for
developing the quantitative methods by which one can implement Hennigs
method for datasets of any appreciable size, and developing the
parsimony criterion, but their work was (quite explicitly) wholly
within the Hennigian framework. They were not just being nice by
recognizing Hennig as the founder of the approach.
-Tom

Tom DiBenedetto                   tdib at umich.edu
Museum of Zoology                 http://www-personal.umich.edu/~tdib
University of Michigan              734-647-2192