2000 years of stasis

[John Grehan]

>Tom DiBenedetto wrote

 I mean, for example, read anything by Kluge in the past few
>decades for long and extended philosophical arguments about why species and
>taxa are individuals, not somehting that can be defined, but must be
>diagnosed etc. etc. How on earth can cladistics be seen as essentialistic?

I have to admit that I have not kept up with cladists discussions of
essentialism,
but if the "diagnosis" is spatiotemporally unrestricted then its no
different from
a definition of essence.

>Finally, Tom Lammers writes that it is molecular biology which is really
>responsible for introducing essentialism in systematics (I find that
>intriguing)

I would also disagree with such a view. Essentialism was well entrenched
in evolutionary biology and systematics long before molecular biology.

John Grehan