Re: Paraphyly and sister taxa (was Re: AMARGASAURUS SATTLERI)

[Dinogeorge@aol.com]

In a message dated 9/3/00 3:08:36 PM EST, jeffmartz@earthlink.net writes:

<<  Paraphyly is implicit at EVERY NODE where the sister taxa are not
 identical, which means at every node except where individual specimens
 assigned to the same genus and species are sister taxa.  Unless we are
 willing to place every single organism in the same genus and species, there
 is no possible system of taxonomy that can eliminate paraphyly.  Taxonomy is
 useless WITHOUT implicit paraphyly. >>

Yes, well, this has always been one of my beefs with cladistic taxonomy. It's 
one of the reasons cladistic taxonomies explicitly avoid identifying and 
classifying ancestral taxa.