Platnick's view of Phylocode

[Curtis Clark]

I read over Norm Platnick's article about Phylocode again, and I've decided
he has made some very good points. He says, "So, let's see, we have John's
salticid and either the Linnaean hierarchy, with 158 million predictions
about spiders alone, or the NB system, with no useful predictions at all."
It is important to note that a system that admits paraphyletic taxa
(Linnaean or not) makes exactly as many useful predictions as a node-based
system. It is ironic that the originator of Ken's beloved "dephylocode" has
condemned not only Phylocode, but also Ken's system, where knowing a name
(only, without Ken's involved notation) is no more useful than it is in
Phylocode.

--
Curtis Clark                  http://www.csupomona.edu/~jcclark/
Biological Sciences Department             Voice: (909) 869-4062
California State Polytechnic University      FAX: (909) 869-4078
Pomona CA 91768-4032  USA                  jcclark at csupomona.edu