"uncompromising, single-minded"

[Thomas Lammers]

At 07:19 AM 11/18/02 -0800, Curtis Clark wrote:
>On the one hand, you decry "strict cladism" for preferring classifications
>that contain only monophyletic groups. On the other hand, when some
>cladists want to go off and name clades independently of traditional
>nomenclature (Phylocode), you castigate them bitterly and cite a (quite
>convincing, IMO) paper by Norm Platnick that points out the value of
>naming only clades within traditional nomenclature. And you present the
>"Kinman System" as evidently the *only* solution to all these problems.
>
>Who is being uncompromising here?

Well, I don't think Ken is, really.  His system is by its very nature, if I
understand it correctly, an attempt to *compromise* between the cladistic
approach and the traditional phyletic approach.  He takes something from
each and creates something unique.  That to me seems the essence of
compromise.  You can criticize the system on its fundamental assumptions or
on its details, but I do think it was created in the spirit of compromise,
of eclecticism.  If Ken is unstinting in promoting his system, I don't see
that that is a problem.  He certainly seems willing to modify it (all
classifications being hypotheses, after all) as new data arise.

The problem with the middle of the road is you get hit by traffic coming
both ways.


Thomas G. Lammers, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor and Curator of the Herbarium (OSH)
Department of Biology and Microbiology
University of Wisconsin Oshkosh
Oshkosh, Wisconsin 54901-8640 USA

e-mail:       lammers at uwosh.edu
phone:      920-424-1002
fax:           920-424-1101

Plant systematics; classification, nomenclature, evolution, and biogeography
of the Campanulaceae s. lat.

Webpages:
http://www.uwosh.edu/departments/biology/Lammers.htm
http://www.uwosh.edu/departments/biology/herbarium/herbarium.html
http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/Resort/7156/lammers.html
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