Re: cladobabble.../Some clarification... (long)

[Jeffrey Martz <martz@holly.ColoState.EDU>]

> Interesting definition of "real" (that is, "real" as "physical, tactile").
> Would you agree that your (or mine, or anyone else's) personal geneology is
> an historic fact?  That we have a particular, singular sequence of parents,
> grandparents, great-grandparents, etc?

     Our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents were real.  The
coexistance off all our ancestors and outselvelves in a cladogram or
any sort of family tree, is not. Organisms leave descendants (hopefully)
and die; they do not form a "group" with thier descendants, particularly 
the ones that existed at different times; that is an artificial graphic
representation intended to help us understand a sequence of _events_
regardless of whether it is monophyletic or paraphyletic.  Having read
Gauthier's paper on phylogenetic taxonomy, I am still at a loss to
understand (or at least agree with) the philosophical basis for
considering a monophyletic group to be any more real then a
paraphyletic group; can someone on this list direct me toward a reference
dealing more strongly with the philosophical claim for monophyletic
reality, rather then claditics in general?
 
LN Jeff
O-