tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3342041114052632712.post3928748152146678583..comments2024-01-20T16:39:42.179+11:00Comments on PhyloBotanist: Why bother about cladism?Alex SLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00801894164903608204noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3342041114052632712.post-35990475894004812112013-07-16T20:24:51.688+10:002013-07-16T20:24:51.688+10:00"Did not like being told our life work was ba..."Did not like being told our life work was based on faulty methodology" is a very personal way of seeing it. Things are moving fast, and some of the papers I published less than ten years ago I would do completely different today. That is the way it goes, all part of learning and improving.<br /><br />But it is understandable that it took time to persuade, and that especially many older colleagues have still not accepted phylogenetic systematics. I can live with that. I have much more empathy for the refusal to accept the approach itself than for the habit of some participants in the discussion to continually regurgitate the same easily refuted arguments. If somebody honestly says, I just prefer to classify like this, then there is not much one can say. But if they keep arguing against straw cladism in paper after paper it gets annoying.Alex SLhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00801894164903608204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3342041114052632712.post-69664133690504028492013-07-16T06:39:42.877+10:002013-07-16T06:39:42.877+10:00The English edition of Henning came out in 1966,a ...The English edition of Henning came out in 1966,a year after I received my PhD. Hennig's ideas where very strongly promoted by a number of ichthyologists I know personally. The most vocal being the late Donn Rosen, from AMNH. A number of his students and associates were also strongly supportive. Their ardor was almost evangelical, and people remarked on the "cladistic religion". Evolutionary taxonomists of the time had classifications comprising a mixture of grade and clade assessments. A number of us, particularly the older workers, did not like being told that their life work was based on faulty methodology. I think Ernst Mayer was one example. <br /><br />I understood the cladistic arguments and was well aware of the controversy. Even so, it took me from 1966 to 1995 to publish my first cladistic phylogeny (later not supported by DNA analysis).<br /><br />I am a strong supporter of Linnean taxonomy and think it offers no necessary impediment to expressing cladistic relationships. It is a legalistic system with some of the warts and foolishnesses that go along with that. I don't think respected scholars should have to waste paper and ink arguing whether a specific epithet should be harti or hartii, for example. Some of the post-cladists may think the Linnean system a dinosaur, and not care to learn, understand, or use it. The cladists I have know over the years have been well versed, and comfortable with the system.Jim Thomersonnoreply@blogger.com