[Taxacom] This week's paraphyly discussions

[Richard Zander]

All paraphyletic taxa are unnatural. They are patterns of relationships generated by nonultrametric cluster analysis. Scientists should use the patterns to generate theories of natural processes and base classifications on those. Not skip the theory part and classify life by the patterns of relationships. That's unnatural.

 
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Richard H. Zander 
Missouri Botanical Garden, PO Box 299, St. Louis, MO 63166-0299 USA 
Web sites: http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/resbot/ and http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/bfna/bfnamenu.htm
Modern Evolutionary Systematics Web site: http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/resbot/21EvSy.htm



-----Original Message-----
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Kenneth Kinman
Sent: Sunday, December 19, 2010 11:45 PM
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: [Taxacom] This week's paraphyly discussions
Hi Stephen,
       That is what I like about the discussions this week. In spite of disagreements about the more minor points (and those will always be inevitable and often stimulate valuable new research), we have been getting back to some of the most important points (especially about paraphyly). That paraphyletic taxa are not unnatural and many people find them very useful.