Thanks to TH for Sick Bee report and discussion

["King, Norm" <nking.ucs@smtp.usi.edu>]

I think we all owe Tom Holtz our gratitude for relating what went on at 
the conference, and his analyses of challenges to cladistics.  Those 
write-ups took a lot of time.  I agree with his wonderment at the 
cladistic intransigents--another matter for those interested in the 
sociology/psychology of science.

My own complaints have to do with nomenclatural practices in phylogenetic 
taxonomy, and I have this uneasy feeling about defining things that have 
never been found, then seeing if we can locate one.  Strikes me as being 
like Plato, with his cosmic ideals and the imperfect manifestations of 
them we find on earth.

Of course, all of MY complaints are valid, but none of the ones by other 
people mentioned by Tom are!


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Norman R. King                                       tel:  (812) 464-1794
Department of Geosciences                            fax:  (812) 464-1960
University of Southern Indiana
8600 University Blvd.
Evansville, IN 47712                      e-mail:  nking.ucs@smtp.usi.edu