[Taxacom] Position Announcement

[Richard Pyle]

Thanks, John -- fair enough.  Some minor points of disagreement (e.g., I
still feel that both lines of evidence are better than one -- so long as
they are interpreted carefully), but now that I've woken up a bit, I'm not
quite cantankerous enough to argue about it! :-)

Aloha,
Rich

> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Grehan [mailto:jgrehan at sciencebuff.org] 
> Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2007 8:29 AM
> To: Richard Pyle; taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> Subject: RE: [Taxacom] Position Announcement
> 
> Rich, 
> 
> A fair question indeed. I think I would avoid the pom-poms, 
> but I would not be as upset (or upset at all) with a solely 
> morphological study because I have my own bias which is that 
> morphological analysis is cladistically defensible as being 
> cladistic whereas molecular methods are basically phenetics 
> dressed up in cladistic terminology and techniques (I know, I 
> know, others on this list think I am nuts).
> 
> But if the advertisement has said that they were only 
> interested in creating a molecular phylogeny then that at 
> least would be precise. My disagreement with that choice 
> would not matter.
> 
> As in the first paragraph, I am not for the view that one is 
> better off doing both morphological and molecular approaches.
> 
> By the way, I submitted a paper on hominid origins that 
> created some strong objections from reviewers who did not at 
> all like the idea that molecular evidence could be wrong when 
> morphology pointed to an alternative (fortunately the editors 
> took the position that a minority view did not of itself 
> preclude publication).
> 
> John Grehan
> 
> 
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu [mailto:taxacom- 
> > bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Richard Pyle
> > Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2007 2:11 PM
> > To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> > Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Position Announcement
> > 
> > 
> > Hi John,
> > 
> > Even though I quietly root for you from the sidelines in 
> your campaign
> of
> > "molecules don't tell the whole story" (or, as I would put it "we
> don't
> > know
> > enough about molecules yet to read the whole story from 
> them"); in the 
> > interest of fairness, I have to ask in the context of your comment:
> > 
> > > Presumably not just from the molecular perspective?
> > 
> > If the position announcement was for a morphological 
> phylogeneticist, 
> > would you also jump in and comment, "Presumably not just from the
> morphological
> > perspective?" My hunch is, you would probably not (indeed, 
> I bet you'd
> get
> > your pom-poms out the way I sometimes do on this list).
> > 
> > I don't know why I'm writing this -- maybe just a bit ornery from 
> > insufficient sleep last night.  But I guess my point is 
> that the same 
> > rationale that would cause one to presume "not just" one line of
> evidence
> > should work both ways.  Personally, I have no problem with studies
> that
> > involve only one kind of evidence or the other -- as long as the 
> > conclusions recognize the limitations.  Studies that involve a 
> > concordance of both kinds of evidence are better, of course 
> > (well...usually, anyway...) -- but
> if
> > you're going to condone studies involving only one kind of evidence,
> you
> > should also be prepared to condone those involving only the 
> other kind
> of
> > evidence.
> > 
> > Cantankerous from Kaneohe,
> > Rich
> > 
> > 
> > 
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