[Taxacom] Croizat "hype"

[John Grehan]

Anyone is welcome to have any view about panbiogeography, whether for or against. It does not matter. What might matter (or not, who knows) is that panbiogeography remains a pertinent issue (and you have Craw and Heads to thank for that) as biogeographers now have to consciously suppress its findings (as with the popular suppression of the fact that molecular clock estimates are minimal) rather than out of ignorance or confusion as may have been more the case in Croizat's time. Like it or not, Croizat changed the landscape of biogeography forever, and in a way that has had lasting impact.

If Ken is willing to put himself on the line to declare how Hausdorf and Henning prove what they argue about vicariance I might be willing to comment.

And by the way, Croizat argued in his writings for 'healthy skepticism' about his method - something that his opponents did not. 

And why not announce Croizat's birthday a month in advance. After all, Darwin's anniversaries often get years of advance notice.

John Grehan

-----Original Message-----
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Kenneth Kinman
Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2011 10:01 PM
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: [Taxacom] Croizat "hype"

 Dear All, 
        I wrote the following e-mail yesterday, but decided not to send
it (thought it was perhaps best to let sleeping dogs lie).  But now that
the even more irrelevant subject of Croizat's birth date has been raised
(and prematurely so, for some strange reason), I figure it must be an
extremely slow news day.  So here is something I consider more important
than Croizat's (or anybody else's) 117th birthday a month from now:           
      The work of Hausdorf and Hennig seems to reflect my
own view that vicariance is overly hyped in too many cases. Not that
vicariance is not real nor a valuable concept, but that it is too often
invoked by those who seem to excessively see vicariance where it does
not exist or overly exaggerate its importance. 
       So I repeat again that it can be too much of a good
thing, much like cladistics (especially strict cladism). Although
Croizat also criticized cladistics, that certainly does not offset his
own shortcomings (at least in the opinion of many) in the area of
biogeography. I take both cladistics and panbiogeography with a large
grain of salt, even if both have contributions to make when done so in
moderation. But those who embrace such ideologies without a healthy
skepticism are mostly doomed to eventual disappointment as the
weaknesses of their ideologies become increasingly apparent. Take what
you can from their views, but beware the shortcomings.  Anyway, here's a
link to one of Hausdorf and Hennig's papers:           
http://www.crcnetbase.com/doi/abs/10.1201/9781420007978.ch4

----------Ken Kinman    

----------------------------------------------------------
Jim Croft wrote:
     by drawing a track between one date and place and another, he found
he could celebrate his birthday wherever and whenever the hell he
wanted... that is true genius... 
jim
 
On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 9:39 AM, Neal Evenhuis <neale at
bishopmuseum.org> wrote: 
> Did he usually celebrate on June 16th or did he wait until >July? 
> 
> On 6/16/11 1:28 PM, "John Grehan" <jgrehan at
>sciencebuff.org<mailto:jgrehan at sciencebuff.org>> >scribbled the
following tidbit: 
> 
> Croizat was born this day July 16, 1894.


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