[Taxacom] Seed plants of Fiji

[Thomas G. Lammers]

At 11:55 AM 11/16/2006, John Grehan wrote:
>you are doing the same as Karl by letting geological theory determine your 
>biogeography

... and that is foolish ... why?    It's like asking an ecologist, "why do 
you let soils, climate, and other abiotic factors determine your 
ecology?"  It's like asking a physiologist, "why do you let cells and 
tissues and organs determine your physiology?"   Physical geography/geology 
is the stage upon which the drama of evolution is acted out.  It seems 
absolutely inane to ignore such things.

So what facts preclude the existence of long-distance dispersal?  What 
observations cause you to reject the hypothesis?   Are there some data that 
indicate spores and seeds cannot travel more than a mile or so?  Are there 
some data that suggest that propagules are incapable of establishing on a 
distant shore after traversing an ocean?  Why is it that ONLY vicariance 
will explain the patterns of plant distribution in all cases?

>I keep coming back to Croizat.

Well, at least you're being honest.  Yes, Croizat said that wasn't the 
case, so clearly it's not.  It's all about swearing allegiance to an 
iconoclastic personality and his unorthodox theory, isn't it?  It really 
colors your thinking, doesn't it?  Everything is interpreted through the 
lens of Croizatism.

You'll forgive me if I get the impression that the important thing here is 
to lionize a worker who was marginalized in his day, to vindicate him, to 
wave him about like a sacred totem against the pedestrian dullness 
mainstream.  It seems to me a cult of personality, contrarian for the mere 
sake of being contrary, taking on the twin dragons of Orthodoxy and 
Entrenched Tradition.

Sorry, but where I come from, we don't call that "science" ...


Thomas G. Lammers, Ph.D.

Associate Professor and Curator of the Herbarium (OSH)
Department of Biology and Microbiology
University of Wisconsin Oshkosh
Oshkosh, Wisconsin 54901-8640 USA

e-mail:       lammers at uwosh.edu
phone:      920-424-1002
fax:           920-424-1101

Plant systematics; classification, nomenclature, evolution, and 
biogeography of the Campanulaceae s. lat.

Webpages:
http://www.uwosh.edu/departments/biology/Lammers.htm
http://www.uwosh.edu/departments/biology/herbarium/herbarium.html
http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/Resort/7156/lammers.html
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"Today's mighty oak is yesterday's nut that stood his ground."
                                                               -- Anonymous