From: Dinogeorge@aol.com
To: kinman@hotmail.com
Subject: Re: replying to pomposity
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 00:44:34 EDT
In a message dated 6/20/00 11:13:20 PM EST, kinman@hotmail.com writes:
<< And given the uncertainties of how these
groups are interrelated, it continues to make perfect sense to classify
Thecodont ancestors in a paraphyletic order rather than hanging out their
in
classificatory limbo because the cladists can't decide where to put them.
There at least 28 families of thecodonts in this paraphyletic order, and
the
ivory-tower cladists maybe let their paraphylophobia keep them from
recognizing it, but that is their problem, and the rest of world is
getting
fed up with such pompous attitudes. >>
Funny thing is, I strongly agree with you with regard to admitting
paraphyletic taxa, defining them in terms of more inclusive clade minus
less
inclusive clade(s). The cladists are way too dogmatic about their taxonomic
conventions, almost rabid ("frothing cladists" is how Alan Charig once
described them). Define a new taxon when an evolutionary novelty appears in
a
lineage, not at some weird cladistic branch point.