Taxacom: strict cladists war against paraphyletic taxa

[Nicolas Bekkouche]

That's an interesting discussion, which has been pretty well explored
theoretically, but a more empirical approach is also good sometimes :

1) Yes this "war" against paraphyly works, it may never
completely disappear, but most new definitions of taxa are based on
monophyty and paraphyletic groups are way less used, and we can still
understand each other

2) If it was such a disaster, in terms of stability, systematics would have
completely died, and we wouldn't have been able to consistently use clades
names over all this time. This prophecy should have happened if it were
that bad. The thing is, many people manage to work and produce knowledge.
The corollary is that before cladistics, evolutionary systematics didn't
collapse from total instability due to the subjectivity of grades.

Sincerely,

Nicolas Bekkouche

On Fri, 12 Dec 2025 at 00:42, Kenneth Kinman via Taxacom <
taxacom at lists.ku.edu> wrote:

> Hi All,
>      The war of strict cladists against paraphyletic taxa has been going
> on for over 50 years.  My question is how successful that war has been in
> regarding formal paraphyletic taxa as "unnatural" and to be eliminated.
>  Or as noted below, does strict cladism actually promote "disastrous
> nomenclatural practices"?
>                         -------------Ken Kinman
> -------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Paraphyly again defended (and strict cladism promotes "disastrous
> nomenclatural practices)
> Kenneth Kinman kinman at hotmail.com<mailto:taxacom%40mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> ?Subject=Re%3A%20%5BTaxacom%5D%20Paraphyly%20again%20defended%20%28and%20strict%20cladism%20promotes%0A%20%22disastrous%20nomenclatural%20practices%29&In-Reply-To=%3CCY4PR11MB1480D1096C914E58FD056F53C1240%
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> Mon Apr 15 20:20:45 CDT 2019
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> ________________________________
>
> Hi All,
>       I just ran across this 2016 paper.  Yet another publication
> defending the reality and need for paraphyletic taxa (for a variety of
> reasons), and it labels strict cladism as promoting "disastrous
> nomenclatural practices":
>
> https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.microbiologyresearch.org%2Fdocserver%2Ffulltext%2Fijsem%2F66%2F12%2F4924_ijsem001474.pdf%3Fexpires%3D1555377331%26id%3Did%26accname%3Dguest%26checksum%3D537594F4A96BABC3F0564A74650291D5&data=05%7C02%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7C787d41f48d9442c6a7d108de39126f65%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C639010948664479354%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C60000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=xoDExbv4agl5jAjpcHNyhNAJsIeudb7sgJlEMLX9bRo%3D&reserved=0
>
> Abstract:
> "Yeast systematics has wholeheartedly embraced the phylogenetic approach.
> Central to this has been the unspoken convention that taxa at all ranks be
> strictly monophyletic. This can result in a proliferation of small genera
> and instances of nomenclatural instability, counter to the expected benefit
> of phylogenetic systematics. But the literature abounds with examples, at
> all taxonomic levels, where paraphyly is a reality that can no longer be
> ignored. The very concepts of Bacteria or Archaea, under the constraint of
> monophyly, are in peril. It is therefore desirable to effect a shift in
> practices that will recognize the existence of paraphyletic taxa."
>
> Another Quote from the articles:
> "Taxonomy sits at an ill-defined confluence of science, craft, ontology
> and the law. Conscientious systematists aim at making sense of the living
> world by organizing species into categories that are meaningful not only to
> themselves, but also to other biologists and the rest of humanity. The last
> decades have seen undue emphasis placed on creating categories that reflect
> an erroneous model of cladogenesis, one that is strictly dichotomous and
> symmetrical. A large proportion of taxa arise not by fission of an
> ancestral progenitor, but by a budding process that leaves the progenitor
> enriched by the presence of its offspring. The retention of cohesive parent
> taxa under a single designation, at the same rank as progeny taxa, has the
> potential to prevent disastrous nomenclatural practices."
>
>                 ------------------------Ken Kinman
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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