[Taxacom] An improved definition of cladogenesis

[Kenneth Kinman]

Hi Richard,
      I really like that characterization of cladistics, especially in
its most restricted (strict) manifestations.  I would only add that from
my perspective, I find cladistic nomenclature FAR more problematic than
cladistic analysis.  One can advocate well-done cladistic analyses
without advocating the travesty that sometimes occurs when they are used
to justify the wholesale attack on every formal paraphyletic taxon just
because of the totally illogical argument that they believe that all
such taxa are unnatural (and therefore to be avoided at any cost).
          --------Ken                    
P.S.  Today I found a reference to an article by Wagner and Erwin, 1995,
"Phylogenetic patterns as tests of speciation models."  I haven't been
able to find it online, but it apparently argues for a more restricted
definition of cladogensis, which would presumably be more akin to my own
view of anagenesis as a broader phenomenon, and perhaps even with
cladogenesis as a mere subset of anagenesis (and thus a less common
occurence where anagenesis sometimes manages to lead to true
cladogenetic speciation).       
-----------------------------------------------------------
Richard Zander wrote:
      Cladistics is to biology more like alphabetization is to the Dewey
decimal system.