Well, this book mainly supports appreciation of naming nature versus,
say, sports. On the other hand, I detect, bwana devil, that you are
making a parallel between cladists and taxonomic traditionalists, versus
modern scientists and traditional (primitive tribespersons, their
shadows dancing in the firelight on the tent walls) namers of nature.
Actually, modern evolutionary systematists, see
http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/resbot/21EvSy.htm
use all kinds of scientific evidence (biogeography, cytology, growth
studies, genomic, whatever) based on well-supported evolutionary theory
to create an evolution-based classification, while phylogeneticists
focus (mainly) on strict phylogenetic monophyly in molecular cladograms.
Phylogenetics is more closely akin to simplistic quackery ("quicksilver
cures all" or "similis similibus curantur" or "monophyly is evolution")
than modern evolutionary systematics.
*****************************
Richard H. Zander
Voice: 314-577-0276
Missouri Botanical Garden
PO Box 299
St. Louis, MO 63166-0299 USA
richard.zander@mobot.org
Web sites: http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/resbot/
and http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/bfna/bfnamenu.htm
Modern Evolutionary Systematics Web site:
http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/resbot/21EvSy.htm
*****************************
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