More on the 'cladistics' of sequences

[John Grehan]

As I indicated earlier, I want to look into what is presented to
substantiate the claim that the a posteriori imposition of an outgroup
is sufficient to produce a 'cladistic' result using phenetic characters
(characters that are not limited to hypothesized apomorphies before the
analysis). 

 

I took a quick look at Page and Holmes (1998) book "Molecular evolution:
a phylogenetic approach. All I have read so far is the statement (p. 21)
that "Given a tree, we can distinguish between ancestral and derived
character states". There is no discussion of this approach (or citation)
in relation to that of Rosa or Hennig to show substantiate the use of
cladistics as the appropriate label. 

 

So what I have read in this book so far is the claim, but not the
substance to counter my contention that approaches rooting phenetic data
results in a phylogeny that is non-cladistic for all that it is rooted.
If I am not totally misguided, it would seem that the
pheneticists/evolutionary systematists a la Mayr won the cladistic wards
after all.

 

I've asked Curtis Clark for a citation of the authority he goes by and I
look forward to that in due course.

 

John Grehan