Agreement Finally!!? (was Paraphyly)

[Julian Humphries]

Ken Kinman wrote:
>
>       The only difference between us eclecticists and the you strict
> cladists is that we also find it useful to regard that very same "boundary"
> as the termination of a taxon (in this case Amphibia).  Strict cladists want
> all taxa to be "open-ended" (i.e., all boundaries are origins only), while
> the rest of us want to regard some of those same boundaries as terminations
> as well (for a variety of reasons).   Sadly, this is what we have been
> fighting over for more than three decades, and it could be so easily
> reconciled with a simple cladisto-eclectic compromise.  (NOTE: another quick
> semantics thing--- maybe if we called them "truncated clades" instead of
> paraphyletic groups, that would make them a little more palatable?  I think
> I'll try that out below).


Ok, lets see.  I want the "truncated clade" Amphibia to stop just before
mammals, no wait, just before birds, no maybe just before humans.  Crap,
this is hard, how I am supposed to decide what one of those major group
ending events is?  This couldn't be an arbitrary process, could it?

Julian Humphries