paraphyly

[SKÁLA Zdeněk]

Yes, this is the point of key importance, as we seem to agree (and was discussed already, so sorry to repeat myself):

>>...we can see that the criteria [for eclecticists and cladists; ZS] are the same:
...

>>...and the significance of gaps.
pierre:
>No.
>Cladist: gap significant or not.
>Eclecticist: needs a criterion for significantly larger versus smaller gaps 
>among this set of significant gaps. e.g.: is 5 significantly larger than 3? 
>The cladist doesn't care.

The "hierarchy of gaps" (better "ordering" IMO) is implicit in the concept of "significance": to distinguish which gap is significant and which is not you need a measure to compare them. If you have a measure, you have the ordering. For example, it is implicit in the concept of natural numbers that 
3<5<9...etc.
Hence, the *criterion* is still one: the significance of gaps.
Best!
Zdenek