Re: Therizanosaurs and Cladistics

[Bill Adlam <bill.adlam@st-peters.oxford.ac.uk>]

On Sat, 10 Jun 1995, Phillip Bigelow wrote:

>> my family tree of dinosaurs as I see it.  I will attempt to send you two
>>trees, one linnean, the other cladistic.
> 
> Actually, you'll be sending us *one* tree. The other is a hierarchial 
>grouping.
> Cladistics is a "family tree" of sorts.  But Linnaean systematics 
> is nothing more than putting name-labels on organisms.  No 
> family-tree is implied in Linnaean systematics.

But Haeckel, who first popularised the analogy of the tree of life, was an 
evolutionary taxonomist of the old school.  I don't know of any modern
taxonomists who actually practise Linnaean-style systematics, classifying 
according to the few most 'essssential' characters and ignoring the rest.
I'm sure Peter meant an evolutionary classification (with Linnaean 
nomenclature).
                                                                Bill Adlam