[Taxacom] Mayr's criticism of the worst cladification

[Kenneth Kinman]

Dear All,
     In 1998, Ernst Mayr offered an insightful criticism of the broadest
attempt at cladification (Three Domains).  Contrary to widespread
misconceptions, neither Eubacteria or Archaebacteria are clades at all
(both are paraphyletic).  And yet one today's most popular cladograms of
all is that simplistic Three Domain tree based on RNA sequences alone.
Strict cladists "like it" because of its simplicity, and yet it is
doesn't reflect the real history of life at all.  The Five Kingdom
classification is far superior, and yet books continue to print the
Three Domain tree in its place.  
      But Mayr does a more eloquent job of criticizing this so-called
cladification, so here is a link to his 1998 paper:

http://www.pnas.org/content/95/17/9720.full

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