[Taxacom] LOL (was Re: New lizard species)

[Stephen Thorpe]

>A taxacomer has asserted that fossils are not ancestors of anything alive today, maybe because they probably are in lines that died out. Is that the reason? Is it a good reason?
>A cladogram is entirely a sister-group diagram

seems to me that there are more "interpretations" of this stuff than there are of the Code! 

I'm not clear on whether a single species (represented by a particular fossil specimen) could be a real ancestor of perhaps even a major taxon alive today???

If speciation is largely a paraphyletic process, which it might be, then where does that leave cladograms (=sister-group diagrams)??



________________________________
From: Richard Zander <Richard.Zander at mobot.org>
To: Kim van der Linde <kim at kimvdlinde.com>
Cc: Taxacom <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
Sent: Fri, 11 June, 2010 10:36:45 AM
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] LOL (was Re: New lizard species)

I've looked at publications on ancient DNA used in phylogenetics, and
such DNA is mostly used as an outgroup. Does anyone know of a cladogram
where ancient DNA was used as an actual ancestor, that is, identified as
a cladogram node or internode. As opposed to just being an exemplar,
that is, an extant DNA? 

A taxacomer has asserted that fossils are not ancestors of anything
alive today, maybe because they probably are in lines that died out. Is
that the reason? Is it a good reason?

Remember that the phylogenetic tree is caulistically empty. A
phylogenetic tree of life may be totally replaced by a nested
parentheses of life. Well, maybe a phylogram has info on genetic
distances or trait changes, but I do not ever expect to see a dinosaur,
mastodon, or Neanderthal represented as an ancestor of anything modern
in a cladogram. A cladogram is entirely a sister-group diagram.



*****************************
Richard H. Zander 
Voice: 314-577-0276
Missouri Botanical Garden
PO Box 299
St. Louis, MO 63166-0299 USA
richard.zander at mobot.org
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: Kim van der Linde [mailto:kim at kimvdlinde.com] 
Sent: Thursday, June 10, 2010 10:18 AM
To: Richard Zander
Cc: Taxacom
Subject: LOL (was Re: [Taxacom] New lizard species)


Never heard of Ancient DNA yet or dinosaur amino acid sequences? We have
now genetic information of ancestors, isn't that great!


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