[Taxacom] New systematics book

[Richard Zander]

Mike:
Thanks for speaking for the list. I wasn't aware that Taxacomers agree
with you so fully.

So ... I should read all the cladistic literature, then I'll be a
cladist? I suggest you read my book, all the points made in the
cladistic literature are refuted therein. But I suppose you already know
that, given that the fatal flaws of phylogenetics are soooo evident, and
just won't accept it.

Monophyly? Cladistics recognizes evolutionarily nonmonophyletic groups
every time it lumps taxa or splits them based on a classification
principle, a cladistically redefined "monophyly" based on
computer-spewed patterns.

"Personal aversion"? A lone voice in the wilderness blown away by the
great winds of cladistic revolution? Huh.

"Suck it up and get back to work"? Well, I've had 30 years of accepting
cladistics because I could not really figure out "what's wrong with
cladistics? Gotta be something but what the heck is it?" I've also
suggested a new way to get back to work using acceptable advances in
phylogenetics plus classical methods in my book, and I am certainly
doing so.

Cladistics has led to "fantastic progress"? Yes, it has.

I detect annoyance. I apologize for my last message in which I got
carried away. I should not have mentioned that person (you are not
mentioning either) in such a manner.

Richard




____________________________
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
UPS and FedExpr -  MBG, 4344 Shaw Blvd, St. Louis 63110 USA

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael A. Ivie [mailto:mivie at montana.edu] 
Sent: Saturday, September 07, 2013 6:10 PM
To: Richard Zander
Cc: mivie at montana.edu; Ken Kinman; taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: RE: [Taxacom] New systematics book


Richard,

I was rebuked off list for engaging you with my posts on this topic with
a rejoinder about pig singing.  Therefore, it seems this is not a
discussion that interests the group. I made a joke, you took it
seriously.

To answer your questions, you do not need any response from the list.
Please read Systematic Zoology, 1975-1992; Cladistics 1985 to date, and
Systematic Biology 1992- to date, as well as books by Wiley and others. 
Your points are exhaustively and repeatedly addressed therein, although
sometimes intemperately and even occasionally rudely.  However, you
probably, actually surely, know all that -- you just don't want to
accept it.

You simply don't like classifications constrained by monophyly.
Sometimes, neither do I, probably at times virtually everyone feels that
way.  Fine, propose classifications that are not based thereon.  No one
will stop you, but you will be criticized by some, and many will not use
your classifications, big deal.  Suck it up and get back to work like
everyone else.

However, this personal aversion of your does not require an entire book
to justify not liking monophyletic classifications.  Preference is just
that.
 Just state you don't use monophyly.  Do understand, however, your
aversion does nothing to negate the theory or operational methodology of
a minutely debated series of issues that led to something that is well
established to have given us a generation of fantastic progress in
understanding the evolution of life on earth.

Mike

P.S. birds are reptiles, get over it.