Fwd: Re: [TAXACOM] genetic vs morphological trace of phylogeny

[Curtis Clark]

At 05:14 2004-04-13, John Grehan wrote:
>Perhaps cladistics is not cladistics any more.

That seems a rather fundamentalist response. Who owns cladistics, anyway? I
submit that it is owned by the people who do it.

>Perhaps. Then again not having 'understood' might be leveled as what is
>simply a different point of view.

I see your point, but I imagine that most of us on the list would not
accept such an excuse from a student in one of our classes. "I have a
different point of view about the energetics of the Calvin cycle
reactions." I wouldn't preclude a different point of view, but I would be
less inclined to accept it from someone who had no familiarity with enzyme
kinetics.

>I was once told that I could not criticize vicariance cladistics unless I
>could do cladistic theory back to front (that ability being measured
>according to the authority of said individual). Never mind that the
>individual did not see the converse being necessary for panbiogeographic
>theory

I would hold you both to a standard only somewhat less strict than he/she
suggested for you.

>You will have noticed that several list members have commented and
>sometimes debated panbiogeography without necessarily having a full
>familiarity with either terminology or methodology. This has not prevented
>me from attempting explanatory responses,

The explanatory responses that I and others have provided about cladistics
seem to me to have had little effect in your case. It is hard to teach or
learn when everything is cast as a "difference of opinion".


--
Curtis Clark                  http://www.csupomona.edu/~jcclark/
Web Coordinator, Cal Poly Pomona                 +1 909 979 6371
Professor, Biological Sciences                   +1 909 869 4062