[Taxacom] Hedges /Kumar (eds) The Timetree of Life

John Grehan jgrehan at sciencebuff.org
Wed May 18 12:48:42 CDT 2011


Dead center of the obvious?

John Grehan

-----Original Message-----
From: Robin Leech [mailto:releech at telus.net] 
Sent: Wednesday, May 18, 2011 1:48 PM
To: John Grehan; Taxacom
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Hedges /Kumar (eds) The Timetree of Life

A species is not found in a particular area for one of 2 reasons:
1.  It cannot live there.
2.  It hasn't gotten there yet.

That puts Ken's comments dead centre.

Robin
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Grehan" <jgrehan at sciencebuff.org>
To: "Taxacom" <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, May 18, 2011 11:24 AM
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Hedges /Kumar (eds) The Timetree of Life


That was my point exactly, and if one (tree construction whether cladistic 
or otherwise) is 'analysis' so to is panbiogeography. And regardless as to 
whether or not panbiogeography is 'not good practice' it works, and works 
well (which then forces the retort that it was all dumb luck anyhow).

John Grehan

-----Original Message-----
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu 
[mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Richard Zander
Sent: Wednesday, May 18, 2011 10:26 AM
To: Jason Mate; Taxacom
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Hedges /Kumar (eds) The Timetree of Life

Wonderful (as in full of wonder) and informative exchange between Jason Mate 
and John Grehan. Jason is correct that relegating non-pattern data to a 
(panbiogeographic) pattern is not good practice. On the other hand, don't 
phylogeneticists do the same, relegating such to a cladogram?

Finding animals in clouds is pareidolia. We taxacommers are often 
pareidolized.  :  )


* * * * * * * * * * * *
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 Jason Mate
Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2011 6:06 PM
To: Taxacom
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Hedges /Kumar (eds) The Timetree of Life


Dear John,


You bring panbiogeography to the mix at your own risk. The risk being that 
you will start subordinating the facts to the pattern. Now if I had two 
sister clades, as in the rodent article, one in South America and one in 
Africa, it could be vicariance or it could be dispersal. The key is timing. 
We are all in agreement that fossils provide a minimal age but there is (or 
should) also a reasonable maximal age (best estimated by the fossil record 
of related groups). Of course with no bottom it becomes impossible (-ish) to 
refute vicariance. And that is my point with Michael´s article.


[snip]
You are moving way beyond the topic here. But in any case tracks are not a 
method of analysis. You are describing a pattern and then trying to impose 
it on other patterns. Humans have this tendency to learn a pattern and then 
look for it. Like finding animals in the clouds or in a piece of wood, just 
because it looks like something it doesn´t mean it is the same thing.

Good night

Jason


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