So much has been happening in the world while I was giving a talk on the adaptiveness of religion in Sydney. The Platypus thing was one item I'd have blogged on if the rest of the blogosphere hadn't beaten me to it. All I can say is that no matter how many bloggers write on the mosaic nature of the platypus genome, at least I got to hold one. And I would never have used the meaningless term "reptile".
And although I have only been to NYC twice, I can say I have a favourite store there, and I saw it on CSI: NY recently (although they obviously tidied up the counter for the shoot).
And there's a paper out debunking the latest version of the Internodal Species Concept. This is what happens when people take set theory as a useful guide to doing taxonomy. It's an object lesson, folks.
Finally, there's a paper that tries, one more time, to defend evolutionary systematics against cladistics, in the form of an argument that Hennig is being incoherent logically. I will get back to that one.
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I've never seen Maxilla & Mandible but I will go next time I'm in NYC. If you like that, I recommend a visit to Deyrolle on Rue du Bac in Paris.
It took me a bit of head-twisting to get what the point of the Envall paper on Hennig was, but I think it's ironic that Envall accuses Hennig of conflating two concepts because that seems to be exactly what Envall seems to be doing.
Are paraphyletic groups real? Certainly they are, because that's what evolution does. Should paraphyletic groups be used as the basis for a formal classification? Probably not, because any line of descent can be broken into a near-infinite array of paraphyletic groups. Remember Psychozoa vs. Animalia? Envall seems to be thinking that answering "yes" to the first question automatically demands an answer of "yes" to the second question, and I don't see that at all.
For the record, I actually like the idea of distinguishing "holophyly" from "monophyly", because sometimes it would be handy to have a term that unites holo- and paraphyletic groups to the exclusion of polyphyletic groups. Bit of a lost battle, I'm afraid. I would also note that while paraphyletic groups are theoretically distinct from polyphyletic groups, my own practical experience is that when all one is presented with is a phylogenetic tree then it's not always easy to tell whether a non-holophyletic group is paraphyletic or polyphyletic.
I remember when we went to that store; there was a good sized gaggle of us, wasn't there? Matt and Cathy are here visiting and I will remind them of it tomorrow. I know I bought something old and dead there, but don't remember what.
Mats, I think the distinction between holophyly and monophyly sensu Ashlock is what is incoherent. But I will discuss this later.
Christopher, I can also inform you that Gareth Nelson tried to find some inconsistency or conceptual confusion in my reasoning for about 5 months without success. Some nights we exchanged dozens of e-mails. The reason for his failure is that there isn't any. I just convey the traditional scientific comprehension of reality, nothing more, nothing less. Hennig twisted the relation between thing and kind up-side-down with the result that he actually confused them, although he thought that he found a "natural" comprehension. It's like a kid's play with daddy's tools. We have to differentiate the phylogenetic analysis from the denial of paraphyletic groups to be able to understand that Linne's system is a consistent synthesis of the incompatible continuity and simultaneity (or concurrency), and thus that it is a consistent synthesizes of thing and kind. "Consistent synthesis" means that it unites continuity and simultaneity consistently in a way that agrees with our basic comprehension that things have properties. In modern terms we can say that it is the first ortogonal classification. Hennig's confusion of continuity and simultaneity, and subsequent "denial" of simultaneity is actually a giant leap back to a confusion of the prescientific conceptualization attempts that preceeded Aristoteles' invention of a concistent conceptualization. Cladism is not only wrong, it is also inconsistent and self-contradictory. It is science up-side-down, that is, anti-science. It actually denies facts. I would never let a cladist influence my kids.
Mats, you are coming off as a crank. Please hold off on the extended comments until I can get around to reviewing your paper properly. And stupid comments like "Cladism... is self contradictory and wrong" marks you out as a fanatic, something discussions of classification all too often fall into.
Mats;
John has issued you a warning at the top of his blog and as a regular visitor to and reader of this blog I would just like to point out that you are making a fool of yourself in public! Sorry for being so blunt but somebody had to say it.
Mats:
I have no wish to become involved in a running battle of words with you so this will be my final comment on the matter. You ask, Can you point at how I'm "making a fool of myself"?
All that John wrote at the head of this thread was, Finally, there's a paper that tries, one more time, to defend evolutionary systematics against cladistics, in the form of an argument that Hennig is being incoherent logically. I will get back to that one.
The normal (correct?) response would have been something along the lines of; I look forward to your attempted criticism and will enjoy proving you wrong ;). Instead of which you have run off at the mouth in a series of increasingly hysterical rants that are most reminiscent of a petulant child who, having suffered a temper tantrum, keeps coming back between sobs with "and...and...and..." Whatever you may think, your postings are a long way from construing a rational academic argument but tend rather to create the impression of a fanatic or as John said a crank. I'm sorry if you find my remarks insulting or demeaning but I seriously think that you have lost your perspective for criticism and need to take a step back and a long deep breath before seriously reconsidering your behaviour.