[Taxacom] An improved definition of cladogenesis

[Curtis Clark]

On 3/15/2010 9:33 AM, Richard Zander wrote:
> I think Curtis wrote something profound, but I guess I need an example
> to clarify what he meant.
>
> Suppose, if biology were the sum of examples, plus explanatory theory, a
> group of scientists rejected paraphyletic groups as examples of
> anything. Is theory concerned with paraphyletic groups then also
> rejected? For example, ah hem, if polar bears are rejected as cladogenic
> taxa, then is any process-based theory (assuming there is such
> somewhere) on why they are so phenomenally different from brown bears
> also rejected?

I'm the wrong ice floe to be barking up, since I accept paraphyletic 
species (and find them no justification for paraphyletic dinosaurs or 
dicots), and my rejection of paraphyletic higher taxa is based more on 
their inability to play well with others than on any theoretical 
constraints (since most if not all para- and even polyphyletic groups 
can be specified in terms of clades).

-- 
Curtis Clark                  http://www.csupomona.edu/~jcclark/
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