[Taxacom] Order Campanulales (worth maintaining?)

[Pierre Deleporte]

I think that putting all "phylogenetics" in the same structuralist bag 
is a very confusing idea

I agree with your global rejection of purely structural, pretendedly 
theory-free
tree-building (cladogrametics?) and tree-use (strict "pattern" 
classifications of all sorts)

just-so classifications make no biological sense,
and searchingt for some possible interpretation afterwards is at best a 
waste of time:
we should better think of what we intend to mean from the beginning
(as Kirk Fitzhugh did put it, if I remember well)

but I understand perfectly that all "phylogeneticians" will not agree
to be indiscriminately accused of ignoring evolutionary theories and models

the real scientific world out there is not like that

best,
Pierre


Le 16/02/2011 16:45, Richard Zander wrote:
> John Grehan is quite right about this. The marketplace of ideas relies
> on weighing alternative theories. Repeat, theories. Not choice of a
> belief system.
>
> Phylogenetics uses the structuralist approach, with cladograms being
> lemmas and classifications theorems, deductively mapped to the
> cladograms. Thus, all non-monophyly must be due to convergence because
> there are no allowable alternative theories that can be dealt with by
> sister-group analysis.
>
> Dick Jensen is also right that you can believe in evidence (i.e.
> evidentiary empirical science) or choose to believe in APG II (i.e.
> structuralist axiomatics).
>
>
> I'm trying to get a paper published on structuralism in phylogenetics.
> It is difficult. When reviewers are phylogeneticists, they go ape shit.
> See
> http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/resbot/EvSy/SciMathPhylog.htm
> or
> http://tinyurl.com/6e7woy4
> for an excerpt.
>
> * * * * * * * * * * * *
> Richard H. Zander
> Missouri Botanical Garden, PO Box 299, St. Louis, MO 63166-0299 USA
> 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:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of John Grehan
> Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2011 7:35 AM
> To:taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Order Campanulales (worth maintaining?)
>
> But that's the way it's always been in taxonomy, or probably anything
> else for that matter. Preferences are made with respect to
> interpretations of evidence. Where the evidence is unambiguous the
> preference will likely be a consensus. Where the evidence has some level
> of ambiguity there will not be a consensus, but likely two or more
> preferences among groups involved. Sometimes the majority group does
> indeed dominate. This is demonstrated extremely well in human origins
> where the overwhelming majority prefer the molecular sequence evidence
> rather than the morphogenetic evidence.
>
> John Grehan
>
>
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