[Taxacom] Evolutionary misconceptions (was: Ladderisingphylogenetic trees)

[Jim Croft]

I am a negative-space kinda guy (also some would claim, a negative,
space-kinda guy)... speciation happens not with reproduction, but
with death - the joining bits in the middle die out.. et voila! species
happens.  :)

It is death, not birth that holds all the good cards...

building biodiversity - one death at at time... :)

jim

On Thu, Mar 11, 2010 at 4:46 PM, Richard Pyle <deepreef at bishopmuseum.org> wrote:

> The point is (echoing what I've said many, many times before on this list),
> that process from single pregnant female to descendant population that is
> sufficiently divergent that we regard it as a distinct subspecies, happens
> one reproductive event at a time. Unless you're willing to declare that one
> offspring was a distinct subspecies from its parent (second question above),
> then the boundary between "same subspecies" and "different subspecies" is
> necessarily fuzzy.

-- 
_________________
Jim Croft ~ jim.croft at gmail.com ~ +61-2-62509499 ~
http://www.google.com/profiles/jim.croft
'A civilized society is one which tolerates eccentricity to the point
of doubtful sanity.'
 - Robert Frost, poet (1874-1963)