|
However the chips fall, it is clear that while cladistics is
useful, it is not magic - in particular we have no reason to expect 100%
perfection. Call them minor blips or whatever, when you've got one slap in
the middle of your philogeny, it's pretty major!
It is a pity we cannot have DNA details of dinosaurs since I
do not believe there was such a sudden burst of DNA changes on loss of flight,
as there was of morphological changes. I would place much greater faith in
a DNA cladogram for birds and related dinos.
Incidentally there is absolutely no reason why we cannot use a
bit of brainpower to improve the performance of cladistics. When I said
"blind" cladistics, I did NOT mean all cladistics is blind. The
truest comment we've had on this subject so far is that GIGO
applies.
Thank you for your patronising reply, Thomas R Holtz jr.
I binned both copies, sonny.
On the subject of democracy in science - no
equivocation - forget it completely. There are endless illustrative
examples, including a good few in palaeo.
We have had a rather sparse response to my request for known
mesozoic uncinants - there can't be many - and of course any birds or bird-like
dinos that don't have them. I'm sure many apart from myself would be
interested in our most up-to-date assessment.
John V Jackson jjackson@interalpha.co.uk
(Wannabeasaurus beecee-effia - & proud of
it!)
|