Re: Quo vadis, T. rex? [long]

[Dinogeorge@aol.com]

In a message dated 96-02-09 01:23:32 EST, pharrinj@PLU.edu (Nicholas J.
Pharris) writes:

>Difference doesn't matter to me.  What matters to me (and, I imagine, to 
>many other taxonomists in various fields) is relationships.  I know from 
>personal experience that many young potential scientists take their first 
>phylogenetic lessons from phylogeny.  They want to know what's related to 
>what, not what some scientist thinks is "different enough to merit a 
>different name".  Phylogeny should, if AT ALL possible, be easily 
>reconstructible from taxonomy.

Why? It sounds as if you're simply parroting cladist dogma here.

It's too bad you're not interested in differences. I will hereafter disregard
all comments on dinosaur morphology from you. :-)

Relationships are already expressed in the ancestor-descendant relation
between paraphyletic taxon and its daughter taxa. With paraphyletic taxa, you
get more: you get relationship AND morphology. This is better.