Paraphyly=mistakes? (There's the rub)

[P.Hovenkamp]

At 01:12 PM 1/8/02 -1000, Richard Pyle wrote:

(...)
>It's not so clear to me that this represents the "only" useful approach, but
>I fully agree that it represents "a" useful approach -- and an extremely
>important one at that.  So important, in fact, that it deserves much more
>than the contortion of a nomenclatural scheme developed a hindered years
>prior to the notion of evolution.  The need to accurately communicate
>phylogenetic hypotheses via nomenclature (which really boils down to the
>need to communicate using text, rather than requiring graphic images of
>cladograms) is so important, in my opinion, that it deserves its own
>dedicated scheme -- one designed *with* an a-priori understanding of the
>evolutionary process.  One that doesn't hinge so critically on stability
>over time(**).  One that looks an awful lot like the Phylocode.

One thing to note is is that Phylocode is more or less similar to Linnean
nomenclature in that it is *not* (in fact, even less) able to communicate
phylogenetic hypothese without text. Can anyone tell whether /Bombacaceae
is included in /Malvaceae or not without looking at a cladogram?

P. Hovenkamp
Nationaal Herbarium Nederland - Leiden
PO Box 9514
2300 RA  Leiden
The Netherlands
hovenkamp at nhn.leidenuniv.nl
http://nhncml.leidenuniv.nl/rhb