RE: hidden "cladistic" ranks

["Ken Kinman" <kinman@hotmail.com>]

Mike and Tracy,
     I must say that Mike's post surprised me a little when I saw 
Coelophysoidea now being excluded from Neotheropoda-----I guess more of that 
stability of content being sacrificed for stability of definition.  And I 
can understand that classifications can be collapsed for "non-specialists", 
but this really just boils down to a strawman argument, since there are also 
a large number of specialists who don't like strictly cladistic 
classifications either.
    I think there is a silently majority of such specialists who are going 
to make their suppressed frustration and anger known once PhyloCode gets 
implemented (and once that happens it may be too late for cladists to 
fashion a compromise solution).  I would like to see us avoid such a 
reactionary pendulum swing (which will hurt cladistic analysis as well), but 
humans seem to have this tendency to blissfully ignore warning signs until 
it is too late and then an equally harmful reactionary backlash goes too far 
in the other direction.  So many lessons we could learn from history if we 
would only pay more attention.
     Irritants like that "Dude" guy (to whom I didn't want to waste any 
time responding) are very easily dismissed as extremist, but just wait until 
the centrists start attacking cladism in droves.  Then strict cladists will 
understand what I have been warning them about, but by then it will be too 
late.  If it were just non-specialists vs. specialists, you might not have 
as much to worry about.  But when the pentup frustrations of many 
specialists is added to the that of non-specialists, an extremely rude 
awakening may be in store for strict cladists (marks my words).
     On a lighter note.  Yes, those spell-checkers come up with some 
strange suggestions, and cladistic ("did you mean sadistic?") is pretty 
funny.  But being a "partial" cladist myself, I am more inclined to be more 
specific:  "strictly cladistic" as perhaps equal to "sickly sadistic".   
[Ooooppps.... I think I detect booing from the clado-gallery.  And in 
anticipation of one possible comeback, let me say that being a partial 
cladist is *not* like being partially pregnant].
     Anyway, I don't think many papers are often turned down due to a lack 
of cladograms.  That's the good news.  But the bad news is that a lack of 
cladograms might hamper one in trying to get a good job at AMNH (which must 
truly be a nightmare of a workplace for anyone with strong doubts about 
strict cladism).  I sometimes refer to it as the Cladomuseum (the origin of 
monstrosities like "parvorders", "mirorders", "grandorders", ad nauseum).  
They stretch the poor Linnean Hierarchy until it starts to break down, and 
then throw it away like a cheap broken toy.  "Tear it all down, and put up a 
parking lot" (probably not the exact lyrics, but you get the idea----you 
don't know what you've got, until it's gone).   Past my bedtime and 
obviously feeling rather cynical and a little cranky.  Tomorrow is another 
day.
          ------Ken Kinman

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