Historical Biogeography: current approach

[John R. Grehan]

At 01:39 PM 5/29/01 -0300, you wrote:
>Dear members of the List,
>
>    I would like to know on the last approach for the historical biogeograph.

I presume 'last' is referring to 'latest'? If this is the case what is the 
criterion? Even most recent publications are nothing more than old 
Darwinian biogeography dressed up in new clothes.

>  Recently I read an execellent synthesis on the subject in the article of 
> Dr. Humphries (2000) in the Journal of Biogeograph.
>José Ricardo M. Mermudes

In what way is it "excellent"? Humphries, by his very title continues to 
give the traditional Darwinian precedence to "form" over space and time. He 
refers to 'deconstruction' without even implementing the methodology of 
deconstruction, and carries on the yet to be demonstrated claim that 
panbiogeography contradicts itself on ancestors: "panbiogeography even now 
has yet to shake off the impediment of ancestors as part of the explanation 
it avowed to replace." and "still clings to the mysteries of ancestry".

One (at least myself!) has to wonder when on the future Humprhies says 
"there is still a very long way to go in uncovering bigoegraphic patters." 
Really? One wonders how far one has to go to have gone a 'long way.' If 
this is all that vicariance cladistics can take us thus far, one might ask 
why bother? In panbiogeography I would say, in comparison, the discipline 
has indeed gone a 'long way' in uncovering biogeographic patterns. All the 
principal tracks connecting ocean basins are identified, and many regional 
areas area also documented in considerable detail.

Humphries characterization seems to be a bit like that of Nelson and 
Platnick (1981) who could only conclude that their much vaunted vicariance 
cladistics could produce only "unanswered questions" about organisms in 
general, about areas of endemism, their interrelationships etc etc. It 
seems that Humphries' historical biogeography has 'a long way' to get 
beyond the 'unanswered questions' of Nelson and Platnick.

John Grehan