Panbiogeography of the Americas

[Fred Rickson]

----------
> From: John Grehan <jrg13 at PSU.EDU>
> To: TAXACOM at USOBI.ORG
> Subject: Panbiogeography of the Americas
> Date: Tuesday, September 28, 1999 4:45 AM

 Of course to those cladists who dismiss Croizat's method as phenetic, this
book,
> along with the rest of his works, is totally lacking scientific merit.
>
> John Grehan

It isn't just the "new cladists" who don't see much science in Croizat.
When the books first came out the 50's - 60's, comment that this "guessing"
in not science was just as strong as today (we even had a graduate seminar
on the books/ideas).  You just don't put dots on a map, draw connecting
lines, and then hypothesize interconnecting land bridges and call it valid
science.  We owe Croizat a large debt of gratitude for the enormous amount
of plant distribution information he put together, and stimulation as to
some very unusual taxonomic situations, but not for explanation of how
those distributions came about.

Fred R. Rickson
Professor of Botany
Department of Botany
Oregon State University
Corvallis, Oregon
USA  97331

Tel: (541) 737-5272
Fax: (541) 737-3573
email: ricksonf at bcc.orst.edu