Cladistics

[jshields@iol.ie (James Shields)]

I'm begining to understand caldistics!

As an amateur, the whole idea makes a lot of sense to me. It instantly makes
a lot of questions like "Is dinosauria an order or a class?" redundant.

However it does also raise a few new ones.

Do classes and orders (and the various divisions) still exist? Are they part
cladistics? (I can see the logic in still classifying mammels, reptiles and
birds, etc as classes as they are major groups of vertibrates, but still to
say that aves is a "sub-clade" of reptilia because it decended from it).

How long have cladistics been around? Why do none of the books seem to be
aware of them? (I have one or two books which seem to hint at their
existance, but they don't try to explain them which leads me to suspect that
the writer doesn't understand them).

Could anyone recommend a book which does explain them (without getting too
technical).

James Shields  -  jshields@iol.ie  -  http://www.iol.ie/~jshields
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And when the ark was finished Noah said unto Elvis, "What do you reckin?"
And Elvis checked out his own cabin and shook his head saying "poky".
And so did they knock several walls through and install a jaccuzzi.
And when it was all done Noah scratched his beard and said, "We don't have
room for all the animals now."
And Elvis perused the livestock list and in his wisdom said, "Lose the
dinosaurs."
        -Robert Rankin, The Suburban Book of the Dead