"cladifications" (was: paraplaying and bullies)

[Ken Kinman]

Fred and others,
      For a theoretical discussion from a more cladisto-eclectic perspective, see  "The use of hierarchies as organizational models in systematics" by Eric B. Knox, 1998.  Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 63:1-49.  Here is a passage from the abstract of that paper:

    "The organizational structure of a hierarchy can be used to represent dualistic properties as inter-level relationships.  Cladistics is monistic, with a singular focus on patterns of descent.  Descent has conceptual priority over modification, but the organizational relationship is not exclusive.  'Cladistic classification' is an oxymoron because cladistics lacks the class concepts needed to construct a classification, a point recognized by those who suggest abandoning Linnaean classification in favour of a newly devised monophyletic systematization."

     And for a more "hands on" (and mathematically objective) example of how cladisto-eclectic classifications might be done in the future, see "Optimal Cladistic and Quantitative Evolutionary Classifications as Illustrated by Fusilier Fishes (Caesionidae)" by Kent E. Carpenter, 1993 (Syst. Zool., 42:142-154).  As Ernst Mayr might say, this is a real classification, not a "cladification".  Unfortunately, I did not see Carpenter's paper in time to include it in my 1994 bibliography.
           ------- Cheers,
                       Ken Kinman