genealogy and divergence

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

Demetrios M Vital wrote:
>    What's the purpose of a taxonomy that doesn't reflect phylogeny?
******************************************
    Another misconception.  Traditional eclecticism also reflects 
phylogeny---but it's not based *solely* on phylogeny.  Cladism does not go 
the extra step to add anagenetic information (i.e. divergence).
    In a landmark paper in 1979 (in Systematic Zoology), Hull bemoans the 
fact that "no methods have been set out thus far which permit the inclusion 
of both sorts of information [genealogy and divergence] in a single 
classification in such a way that both are retrievable."   But that is what 
I was already doing at that time with my own classification system, 
accomplished by synergistically combining the best of both cladistics and 
traditional eclecticism.
     Peter Ashlock explains the differences between cladism and eclecticism 
much better than I ever could (see Mayr and Ashlock's 1991 book on 
systematics).
         ---I'm tired,    Ken

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