cladism's greatest weakness

[Curtis Clark]

At 07:22 PM 9/16/99 -0700, Ken Kinman wrote:
>     Excellent point.  This speciation process is called "budding" and is
>quite common.   It is probably the true Achilles heel of cladism, even
>though I doubt most cladists realize this weakness.

Even my undergraduates understand that the paraphyly of the protists and
reptilia is of a different nature than the paraphyly of a species that
gives rise to peripheral isolates.

I think the vocal cladists (and I would include myself) are in the minority
because all the rest of them are actually spending their time doing
research and learning things about evolutionary relationships among
organisms.


----------------------------------------------------------------
Curtis Clark                  http://www.csupomona.edu/~jcclark/
Biological Sciences Department             Voice: (909) 869-4062
California State Polytechnic University      FAX: (909) 869-4078
Pomona CA 91768-4032  USA                  jcclark at csupomona.edu