[Taxacom] Psychocosm of Cognitive Dissonance

[Curtis Clark]

> characters evolve (no, taxa or populations do);
"Character evolution" is a useful shorthand, but it might have been 
better had we adopted "character state transformation", because that 
doesn't lead us down Via Primula.
> science without theory is still science (no, it is structuralism);
It could also be mathematics. Is math "numerical symbolic structuralism"?
> expressed traits are not important in evolution, and
Expressed traits are the only traits important in evolution. Unexpressed 
traits are interesting baggage, as additional evidence of descent.
> all you need is an ahistorical Markov chain (no, Darwin emphasized "change of species by descent");
Ahistorical Markov chains can be very useful. I think you and I might 
agree that it's never a good thing to mentally replace the thing 
analyzed with the analysis.
> a node on a cladogram implies a speciation event (no, not unless you can identify or guess at the species that changes into another and phylogeneticists do not even try);
It most certainly *does* imply a speciation event. Don't ask more of 
implication than it has to offer. Whether it *signifies* a speciation 
event relies on a lot of other evidence.
> I see biosystematists are making a comeback. Good on them. There is hope.
I agree, although my major professor, Don Kyhos, used chromosome 
configurations in a way that was effectively grouping by shared 
apomorphy and outgroup comparison.


-- Curtis Clark Cal Poly Pomona