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Date: Sun, 13 May 2001 12:18:42 +0200
From: David Marjanovic <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>
To: PhyloCode mailing list <phylocode@ouvaxa.cats.ohiou.edu>
Subject: Re: Nipping the bud
> Jaime, > "Nipping the bud" is the ultimate problem with pure phylogenetic > taxonomy. Even many cladists will admit that speciation is a budding > (paraphyletic) process. Therefore paraphyletic groups are a superior model. Wait a minute. Cladists emphasize all the time that species and clades are totally different things. You might want to read "Properties of Phylogenetic Nomenclature" (and, while you are at it, the rest of the page :-] ) at http://www.ohiou.edu/phylocode/preface.html. Paraphyletic species must exist -- basic "assumption" of the theory of evolution --, and paraphyletic clades cannot exist. > Sister groups are a Hennigian convention (not based in reality at all), Mmmm... no. But the node where 2 sister groups join may lie within a species, or even at one single organism (or 2 for sexually reproducing ones). > In reality the tree of life is a nested series of paraphyletic species > that we can never discover, so the best we can hope is to recognize the most > useful set of [...] (clades) that we can. Those > are the ones that should get formal names, and denying that paraphyly > does[...] exist is to deny one of the primary aspects of the evolutionary > process. Sure.