Phylocode, Cladistics and Eclecticism ...

[Ken Kinman]

Dear All,
     First I would like to thank Pierre Deleporte for his kind words.  This
is where I think the future of systematics lies---- moderate cladists and
moderate eclecticists understanding one another and accomodating each
other's needs.  This is far better than the extremely embarrassing fight
over bird origins, where more extreme cladists and extreme eclecticists are
publicly trashing each other in the press.
     Where American cladism (in particular) got off track was that they took
Hennig's sister group "convention" and turned it into a "definition".
Hennig's sister group convention is what makes cladistic analysis (done
moderately in "Ashlockian" fashion) work so well.
     But we now have a whole generation of biologists having been taught
that sister groups are REAL, rather than a methodological convention.  From
that incorrect premise, they can argue that paraphyletic taxa are unreal,
unscientific, and are mistakes that must be corrected (destroyed).
     If you try to argue from the perspective that paraphyletic species are
real, they will just argue either (1) that species are arbitrary and thus
not real; or (2) species and higher taxa are just "apples and oranges" and
can't be compared.  Then it just degenerates into a philosophical quagmire
about reality, fuzziness, and arbitrariness.  I've seen it happen on this
list many times, and I now usually avoid such threads when they get to that
stage.
     To me, clades are real (although their boundaries are unavoidably fuzzy
and arbitrary).  Sister clades are NOT real, but they are a useful
convention within the context of cladistic analysis.  When this distinction
(clades vs. sister clades) is brought to the attention of today's students
who were taught by a strict cladist, many of them feel they have been
misled.  But in their defense, many of those teachers truly believe that
strict cladism is logical, and that they are teaching their students
something scientifically valuable.  After decades of believing in strict
cladism and investing so much in it, many strict cladists will probably
continue to practice strict cladism even after it goes into decline.  I have
no control over that, but I can try to salvage what I believe is good about
cladistics, namely cladistic analysis.  And as I have pointed out before, my
classifications are heavily cladified, but the total elimination of
paraphyletic taxa will inevitably destroy the utility of classifications,
and ultimately the confidence of the public who fund scientific research.
            ------ Ken Kinman
****************************************
Thomas Lammers wrote:
>They may both be "right" within the context of their definitions,  but by
>any objective standard, the former is a very very foolish definition.  The
>act of speciation does not alter the original species in any demonstrable
>fashion.  Any measure or characterization of that species taken before the
>event will be EXACTLY the same after the event.  The cladistic insistence
>that it IS something different  is merely a legalistic fiction  required to
>hold up the cladistic house of cards.  I say it again: The Emperor Has No
>Clothes!
>
>Principles & methodology have become more important than what really
>happened.  In my book, that constitutes Bad Science.
>
>Thomas G. Lammers, Ph.D.
>
>Assistant Professor and Curator of the Herbarium (OSH) Department of
>Biology and Microbiology University of Wisconsin Oshkosh



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