[Taxacom] Invisible evolution

[Laurent Raty]

> > 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.

Then what about the assumption that *any one* of the descendent populations
MUST be a "different species" from the ancestral population because they are
different now ?
This is *also* based on a priori assumptions - that species boundaries MUST
be meaningful across time, and that "being the same species" MUST be stricty
transitive.

Laurent -
--
Laurent Raty
l.raty at skynet.be
Brussels, Belgium