RE: seeking clarification on the cladism debate (RE: hidden "cladistic" ranks)

["T. Mike Keesey" <tmk@dinosauricon.com>]

On Wed, 17 Oct 2001, Ken Kinman wrote:

>      A quick clarification and a link to Benton's excellent article.  Beyond
> the main debate over cladistic "classification", there is also a debate over
> the best methods of cladistic "analysis" (i.e. phylogenetic reconstruction).
[...]
> The abstract sums it
> all up in a nutshell, and then he delves into the particulars of this
> long-standing debate.

Although this is ostensibly a criticism of PhyloCode, I got the feeling,
when reading it, that Benton had not thoroughly read PhyloCode. It is, in
parts, a good criticism of certain practices in phylogenetic, or
cladistic, systematics, but it wholely ignores the measures PhyloCode
proposes for dealing with these practices.

By all means read Benton's paper, but to get a more balanced view, you
should also read the draft PhyloCode, available on-line at
<http://www.ohiou.edu/phylocode/>.

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