[Taxacom] Invisible evolution

[Peter Stevens]

Really! Really?

P.

>----- Original Message -----
>From: Richard Jensen <rjensen at saintmarys.edu>
>
>>  I've never been convinced of the logic of this approach. I once 
>>discussed this with David Hull, whose reply suggested that he, too, 
>>found this puzzling.<
>
>This problem is a reflection of the key fatal flaw with cladistics: 
>the fact that it's practitioners are more interested in cleaving to 
>a priori assumptions and getting the method to come out right, 
>rather than discovering what *really* happened.  (Or as Art 
>Cronquist characterized it, the preference for an elegant minuet 
>over an unbridled search for truth.)  The ancestral species MUST go 
>extinct lest our a priori decision that paraphyly is unacceptable be 
>compromised.
>
>Tom Lammers
>
>
>
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>
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