Phylogenetic evidence

[Peter Stevens]

Well, if they were complete genealogies, this would make life very
complicated indeed.  Both Darwin and Wallace, as far as I can work
out, realised that to have complete genealogies in the sense of all
the ancestors, etc, being present., would make life very difficult -
classification would become impossible, arrangement would be all that
the naturalist could do.  You might be able to hang everything on a
tree, but then you might have to step back and say, "My, my, what a
beautiful tree".

P.



>Perhaps,
>"our classifications will come to be as far as they can be so made,
>genealogies" (C. Darwin)?
>Barry
>  Don.Colless at CSIRO.AU wrote:He got it right, in that the word is
>from the Greek for "tribe" and "origin"
>- that is, it's the study of the origins of species - or taxa, if you wish;
>but what warrants the leap, to the "enterprise of erecting classifications
>" etc.?
>
>
>
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