Biogeographic memory

[P.Hovenkamp]

At 01:57 PM 8/23/01 -0400, John R. Grehan wrote:

(...)

>>I resent the suggestion that we "censor" Croizat. It suggests that you have
>>no notion what censorship really implies. Croizat's books weigh down
>>bookshelves all over the world - and nobody ever got fired for citing him.
>
>Perhaps we have different notions of censorship. If one deliberately omits
>reference to a particular work relevant to the topic or issue of a paper, then
>to me that is a form of censorship - self censorship I would agree.

If that is your notion of censorship - please do not use the word in
correspondence that is read outside America. Real censorship is still an
issue in many parts of the world.

However that may be, my main point remains that Croizat's work is only
remotely relevant to the task we had set ourselves.

>>I even wonder whether any paper ever was rejected merely for citing
>>Croizat.
>
>I can confirm that has happened.

Do you mean it was accepted after the reference was omitted - or were there
more points that needed revision?

>>On our part, it may
>>simply be explained by our aim to develop the field of cladistic
>>biogeography - integrating phylogenetic information into biogeography.
>
>By integrating phylogenetic information into 'biogeography' one must
>consider the
>'biogeography' I would think. And for the subject in question Croizat
>certainly informs
>on the 'biogeography' of the area in question.
>
>>Croizat's view - and yours (going by your book with Craw and Heads) is that
>>biogeography informs phylogenetic reconstruction. This alone makes the
>>whole Panbiogeographic attempt irrelevant to our aim, which was to do
>>biogeography informed by phylogeny
>
>If one is to consider how something is informed by phylogeny one would have to
>consider the biogeography so I don't see this as a substantiated rationale for
>censoring reference to what Croizat informed of the biogeography in question.
All of Croizat's discussions are totally without reference to the value of
resolved schemes of relationships. Likewise, in your book you are stressing
that biogeographic analysis is prior to the establishment of a natural
classification.

(...)
>>Then, eager to learn something about panbiogeography from a more concise
>>book, I open Craw, Grehan and Heads only to be baffled already by their
>>statement with regard to the very first distribution maps they show (fig
>>1-1): "the distributions of these groups are geographically similar" and
>>"are not distinguishable according to their different means of dispersal"
>>In fact, one group (freshwater fish) is restricted to areas that have (or
>>have had in the  recent past) a land connection, the other (butterflies!)
>>extends to far-out oceanic islands that certainly never were connected to
>>the mainland area! How is it possible to ignore such differences?
>
>We did not ignore the differences. The distributions are similar, we never
>said they were identical. One will note that the butterfly is in areas where
>the fish is absent, and visa versa.

I quote again (p. 6): "their distributions are not distinguishable
according to their different means of dispersal".
A simple test: put the two maps before a reasonably well-informed audience
- ask them to indicate which of the two is more likely to be a group of
butterfly, which of freshwater fish.



P. Hovenkamp
Nationaal Herbarium Nederland - Leiden
PO Box 9514
2300 RA  Leiden
The Netherlands
hovenkamp at nhn.leidenuniv.nl
http://nhncml.leidenuniv.nl/rhb