[Taxacom] Restless natives

[Kenneth Kinman]

 Hi Richard,
       The statement below seems too anti-phylogenetic to me.  There are
many instances of paraphyletic relationships in my classifications, and
yet I still do not formally recognize many of them.  The coding system
instead shows such paraphyly as two or more sequential clades in a
phylogenetic (Hennigian) comb in instances where no "major" divergence
appears to have occurred.           
      Therefore, "ANY" demonstrable paraphyly being necessarily
preferable does not ring true for me.  This would be especially true at
higher ranks, where extinction (and a poor fossil record) often
increases the evolutionary gaps, and sister group relationships often
tend to be the only basis we have on which to base our classifications.
HOWEVER, I still do agree with your conclusion that paraphyly is
important in classification.  Just not quite as important as that
statement seems to imply.
            ------Ken Kinman                  

-------------------------------------------------------
 Richard Zander wrote:
ANY demonstrable paraphyly is preferable to sister-group relationships
as evidence of evolution, and therefore paraphyly is important in
classification on an evolutionary basis.