[Taxacom] Algorithmic; [was:] New classification of Hominidae (incl. the "hobbit")

[Barry Roth]

Well, exactly.  And as sympathetic one might be to goals such as "balance" and other such criteria, those remain fuzzy, undefined.  When there are explicit algorithms for reaching those, or other -- not necessarily phylogenetic, although that happens to be my preference -- attributes in a classification, then there is reason to pay attention to the resulting product.  Otherwise there is no reason to expect that one person's maundering would come up with the same classification as another's.
 
Barry Roth

--- On Thu, 4/30/09, John Grehan <jgrehan at sciencebuff.org> wrote:



But if the elements of evidence used in a particular classification are not explicit then one is just left guessing.

John Grehan