[Taxacom] Elimination of paraphyly: sensible or not?

Sat Feb 10 13:56:42 CST 2018

An unresolved trichotomy is just that. If there is additional information
to resolve it then fine.

On Sat, Feb 10, 2018 at 2:50 PM, Richard Zander <Richard.Zander at mobot.org>
wrote:

> Yes, that’s it. An unresolved trichotomy. Compare that cladistic
> “discovery” with a hypothesis that Granddad begat Dad who begat Billy.
> Which is more informative?
>
>
>
> I advance here a parallel with distinguishing cladistic relationships from
> evolutionary relationships. Yes, additional information is needed, and when
> it is available it should be used.
>
>
>
>
>
> -------
>
> Richard H. Zander
>
> Missouri Botanical Garden – 4344 Shaw Blvd. – St. Louis – Missouri –
> 63110 – USA
> <https://maps.google.com/?q=4344+Shaw+Blvd.+%E2%80%93+St.+Louis+%E2%80%93+Missouri+%E2%80%93+63110+%E2%80%93+USA&entry=gmail&source=g>
>
> richard.zander at mobot.org
>
> Web sites: http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/bfna/bfnamenu.htm and
> http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/resbot/
>
>
>
> *From:* John Grehan [mailto:calabar.john at gmail.com]
> *Sent:* Saturday, February 10, 2018 1:41 PM
>
> *To:* Richard Zander
> *Cc:* Kenneth Kinman; taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> *Subject:* Re: [Taxacom] Elimination of paraphyly: sensible or not?
>
>
>
> The issue of the common ancestor of Bill and his Dad is not informative
> unless it is posed as a three taxon statement (with respect to a fourth
> outgroup). My limited familiarity with cladistics is with differentiated
> entities, not within populations of individual organisms so perhaps someone
> else could comment. Perhaps if the question were whether Bill is more
> closely related to Dad than Mom (or Mum) the answer would be a trichotomy
> (technically unresolved cladogram).
>
>
>
> John Grehan
>
>
>
> On Sat, Feb 10, 2018 at 2:19 PM, Richard Zander <Richard.Zander at mobot.org>
> wrote:
>
> I don’t think so.
>
>
>
> Take Billy and his Dad. Who is the common ancestor?
>
>
>
> Consider Billy, Dad and Granddad. Which two are more closely related to
> each other than to the third? Using cladistics you can probably get a
> resolved cladogram in this very simplistic puzzle of progenitor-descendant
> relationship.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -------
>
> Richard H. Zander
>
> Missouri Botanical Garden – 4344 Shaw Blvd. – St. Louis – Missouri –
> 63110 – USA
> <https://maps.google.com/?q=4344+Shaw+Blvd.+%E2%80%93+St.+Louis+%E2%80%93+Missouri+%E2%80%93+63110+%E2%80%93+USA&entry=gmail&source=g>
>
> richard.zander at mobot.org
>
> Web sites: http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/bfna/bfnamenu.htm and
> http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/resbot/
>
>
>
> *From:* John Grehan [mailto:calabar.john at gmail.com]
> *Sent:* Saturday, February 10, 2018 1:02 PM
> *To:* Richard Zander
> *Cc:* Kenneth Kinman; taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
>
>
> *Subject:* Re: [Taxacom] Elimination of paraphyly: sensible or not?
>
>
>
> However one might want to call it and however one might want to represent
> it, the primary issue behind all evolutionary relationships from the
> beginning until now has been whether A is more closely related to B than C.
> Cladistics is one way of doing that (and within cladistics many ways to
> determine how). That is not to say that there may be others just as good.
>
>
>
> John Grehan
>
>
>
> On Sat, Feb 10, 2018 at 1:54 PM, Richard Zander <Richard.Zander at mobot.org>
> wrote:
>
> Ken:
> Hörandl and Stuessy are trying to find common ground with cladists. They
> aver that discovering shared descent is a primary desideratum. My stance
> regarding shared ancestors is that this is not particularly important, but
> progenitor-descendant relationships are, simply because the latter can be
> identified, often anyway, while modeling shared descent between sister
> groups involves unnamed, invisible, hypothetical progenitors of sister
> groups, and is primarily a clumsy attempt to add an evolutionary dimension
> to a cluster analysis dichotomous tree.  Shared descent of a lineage is a
> fine concept, but a lineage should not be a branching series of nodes, one
> node generating the next, but instead a sometimes-branching series of taxa.
>
> Richard
>
>
> -------
> Richard H. Zander
> Missouri Botanical Garden - 4344 Shaw Blvd. - St. Louis - Missouri -
> 63110 - USA
> <https://maps.google.com/?q=4344+Shaw+Blvd.+-+St.+Louis+-+Missouri+-+63110+-+USA&entry=gmail&source=g>
> richard.zander at mobot.org<mailto:richard.zander at mobot.org>
> Web sites: http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/bfna/bfnamenu.htm and
> http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/resbot/
>
> From: Kenneth Kinman [mailto:kinman at hotmail.com]
> Sent: Friday, February 09, 2018 5:05 PM
> To: Richard Zander; taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Elimination of paraphyly: sensible or not?
>
>
> Hi Richard,
>
>       Do you have any opinion on Horandl and Stuessy's 2010 paper in the
> journal Taxon ( "Paraphyletic groups as natural units of biological
> classification" ).
>
>       For anyone who has not read it, it can be found it here:
>
>
>
> https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Elvira_Hoerandl/
> publication/230818733_Paraphyletic_groups_as_natural_units_of_biological_
> classification/links/0912f504f1250eb15b000000/Paraphyletic-groups-as-
> natural-units-of-biological-classification.pdf
>
> ________________________________
> From: Taxacom <taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu<mailto:taxacom-bounces@
> mailman.nhm.ku.edu>> on behalf of Richard Zander <Richard.Zander at mobot.org
> <mailto:Richard.Zander at mobot.org>>
> Sent: Friday, February 9, 2018 4:45 PM
> To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu<mailto:taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Elimination of paraphyly: sensible or not?
>
> Paraphyly is not a process in nature. It models nothing real. It is a
> gimmick used by cladists because there is no innate taxon concept in
> cladistics.  It occurs when one taxon generates one or more other taxa of
> the same taxonomic level.
>
>
>
> Phylogenetics is not the study of evolution. It is the study of
> dichotomous trees generated by non-ultrametric cluster analysis using
> character state changes. Cladistics is better at grouping evolutionarily
> related taxa than cluster analysis by overall similarity, but it does not
> model an evolutionary tree.
>
>
>
> To study evolutionary trees you need to be aware of (have information
> about) radiation of descendants from progenitors. Trees restricted to
> sister groups do not allow hypotheses of serial evolution.
>
>
>
> This discussion is about classification based on a particular kind of
> cluster analysis, not evolution. Classification should reflect what we know
> about evolution, not cluster analysis.
>
>
>
> -------
>
> Richard H. Zander
>
> Missouri Botanical Garden - 4344 Shaw Blvd. - St. Louis - Missouri -
> 63110 - USA
> <https://maps.google.com/?q=4344+Shaw+Blvd.+-+St.+Louis+-+Missouri+-+63110+-+USA&entry=gmail&source=g>
>
> richard.zander at mobot.org<mailto:richard.zander at mobot.org>
>
> Web sites: http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/bfna/bfnamenu.htm and
> http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/resbot/
> bfnamenu - Missouri Botanical Garden<http://www.mobot.org/
> plantscience/bfna/bfnamenu.htm>
> www.mobot.org<http://www.mobot.org>
> B ryophyte F lora of N orth A merica. W EB S ITE . MENU * The Treatments:
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