Society of Systematic Biologists

Classes and Cladists

Author(s): John Beatty
Source: Systematic Zoology, Vol. 31, No. 1 (Mar., 1982), pp. 25-34
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. for the Society of Systematic Biologists
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Syst. Zool., 31(1), 1982, pp. 25-34

CLASSES AND CLADISTS

JOHN BEATTY

Abstract
Beatty, J. (Department of the History of Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mas-
sachusetts 02138) 1982. Classes and cladists. Syst. Zool., 31:25-34.-Disillusions concern-
ing evolutionary theorizing have forced a split among cladists. The disillusioned group of
"pattern" cladists seeks an evolutionarily neutral brand of cladistics. But pattern cladistics is
not, after all, evolutionarily neutral. Rather, it is at odds with evolutionary theorizing. [Classes;
cladistics; evolution; phylogenetics; Popper.]

Hull (1976, 1978) has argued that if
species are interpreted as classes, as is
traditional, then a little problem arises-
namely, species cannot evolve. But ac-
cording to our best accounts, they do.
Thus there is an inconsistency in our un-
derstanding of species. In Section 1, I re-
formulate the difficulty in order to reem-
phasize the problem. My ultimate
purpose, however, is to discuss the dif-
ferences between two ever more distin-
guishable groups of cladists in terms of
the difficulty that this problem poses for
each. In Section 2, I discuss the back-
ground to the widening split between
phylogenetic and pattern cladists. Final-
ly, in Section 3, I argue that pattern clad-
ism has conceptual drawbacks that stem
from the problem outlined in Section 1.
1. Evolutionary Theory vs. a
School of Systematics
1.1- The sort of interpretation of species
that Hull finds most objectionable from
the viewpoint of evolutionary biology is
one according to which a species name
is defined in terms of the set of properties
operationally employed to recognize and
distinguish members of that.species from
other species. Thus, we recognize and
distinguish polar bears (Ursus mariti-
mus) from brown bears (Ursus arctos)
by, among other traits, their white coats.
Consequently, we might include the dif-
ferentiating property "white coat" in the
definition of "Ursus maritimus." We
would also include the other properties
that distinguish maritimus from other
species of Ursus, as well as those prop-
25
erties that distinguish Ursus from other
genera of its family, and the properties
that distinguish its family from other fam-
ilies of its order, and so on. To say that
species so designated are "classes" is just
to say that they are collections of objects
that share the defining properties of the
species name.
Two kinds of classes, hence two kinds
of class interpretations of species, are
commonly distinguished (e.g., Beckner,
1959, Chapter 5; Caplan, 1980). The
name of an "Aristotelian class" is defined
in terms of properties that are collective-
ly necessary and sufficient for member-
ship in the group. Members of a "cluster
class," on the other hand, need only sat-
isfy most of the defining properties of the
class name. So any defining property of
the name of an Aristotelian class is pres-
ent in 100% of the members of that class,
while any defining property of a cluster
class is present in a high proportion of
members of the class.
One can imagine still other sorts of
class interpretations of species. For ex-
ample, the defining properties of a
species name need not be the usual sorts
of properties operationally used to rec-
ognize and distinguish members of dif-
ferent species. They might instead be re-
lational properties like interbreeding and
ancestor-descendant relations specified
with regard to model members of the
group. Alternative class interpretations
like the latter can be worked out. But it
is the interpretation in terms of the usual
recognition properties that is at issue in
Hull's work and in the recent division

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 26 SYSTEMATIC
B C
A defining properties of the name of a
FIG. 1. See text for explanation.
between cladists. Accordingly, I will
stick to that sort of class interpretation.
1.2 Hull argues that species so con-
ceived cannot evolve. I am inclined to
argue, more specifically, that species so
conceived cannot evolve with respect to
their defining properties. One way of
stating that problem, as I will argue, is
that defining traits instantly reach satu-
ration frequency in newly descended
species, a miraculous occurrence even
for the staunchest saltationist. Another
way of stating the problem is that as a
result of systematists' conventions, there
are certain traits, namely defining traits,
whose evolutionary histories we are pre-
vented from describing and understand-
ing, a stifling condition even for the most
modest evolutionist.
Consider the sense in which species so
conceived "evolve." Take, for instance,
the species A, whose name is defined in
terms of the properties a, b, c, and d. By
definition, the frequencies of a, b, c, and
d are high to 100% in each generation of
members of A. In contrast, the frequency
of a nondefining trait e could range any-
where from 0% in one generation to
100% in another generation of members
of A. In that sense, at least, A can
"evolve" with respect to e. So within the
confines of the sort of class interpretation
we are considering here, a species can
evolve with respect to nondefining, but
not defining, properties.
What's wrong with that? Plenty, as a
simple example illustrates. Assume that
species are classes in the sense above.
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ZOOLOGY VOL. 31
Assume in addition that one species is
"descended" from another, at least in the
sense that members of the "daughter"
species are descendants of members of
the "parent" species. The phylogenetic
tree in Figure 1 represents the assump-
tion that species B is the daughter of par-
ent species A, even where A and B are
classes. Finally, consider that among the
daughter species, there should be some
properties that are not common to mem-
bers of the parent species, and that there-
by serve to distinguish the daughter from
the parent. Among the defining proper-
ties of "B," then, there should be at least
one property-call it x-that is not com-
mon among members of A.
What is perturbing about all this is our
inability to account for the increase in
frequency of trait x, from the time when
it was infrequent among members of A to
the time when it was frequent among
members of B. We cannot explain its in-
crease in frequency in species B because,
by definition, all or a high proportion of
the members of B have x. But x also could
not have increased to a high frequency
among members of A; its role among the
defining properties of "B" is to distin-
guish B from A, in which it does not occur
frequently. At best we can say that x in-
creased in frequency instantaneously as
B was born, even though we don't be-
lieve it. Thus, it seems, the very selection
of defining properties places constraints
upon the traits whose evolutionary his-
tories we can describe and understand.
These constraints are not natural-not
part of the way the world is-but are sim-
ply man-made constraints upon what we
can possibly know.
1.3 How do we get out of this mess?
Ghiselin (1966, 1969; 1974, Chapter 4)
and Hull (1976, 1978) have argued that
the traditional class interpretation of
species obscures the genealogical nature
of species. Furthermore, as Hull argues,
unless we interpret species entirely ge-
nealogically, without regard to the simi-
larities and dissimilarities of their con-
stituents, we cannot make sense of the
 1982 CLASSES
evolution of species. I would argue, more
specifically, that unless we interpret
species entirely genealogically, we are
forced into the position that species can-
not evolve with regard to their defining
properties, and hence we are forced to
accept the problematic consequences of
that position, as discussed above. Species
must be lineages if we are to make sense
of the evolution of species in the manner
we presume to. The reasons are as fol-
lows.
Organisms make up a lineage by virtue
of their interbreeding and ancestor-de-
scendant relations, not by virtue of sat-
isfying the sort of membership-require-
ment properties traditionally thought to
define species names. A lineage can
evolve with regard to any of the latter
sort of properties and still remain the
same lineage. So a name given to a lin-
eage is not properly defined in terms of
any particular properties of that sort. To
be sure, the organisms that constitute a
lineage may, at any one time, have prop-
erties in common that are useful for rec-
ognizing that lineage, and for distin-
guishing it from its contemporaries. But
such distinguishing descriptions should
not be confused with definitions. In this
respect, at least, lineages and their names
are similar to individual organisms and
their names. "The author of the Origin"
is a description that distinguishes Charles
Darwin from everyone else. Anyone who
asserted that Darwin did not write the
Origin would be viewed suspiciously,
but they would not be accused of contra-
dicting themselves, as they would if
"Charles Darwin" were defined in terms
of the characteristic in question. As in the
case of individual organisms, so too in the
case of lineages: distinguishing descrip-
tions associated with their names are not
definitional constraints on the respects in
which they can change. Hence, we can
meaningfully talk about the increase in
frequency of any of the properties of the
organisms that constitute a species-qua-
lineage, whereas we cannot meaningful-
ly talk about the increase in frequency of
the defining properties of a species-qua-
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AND CLADISTS 27
class. The lineage interpretation thus
skirts the difficulties of the class interpre-
tation discussed earlier.
2. A School of Philosophy vs.
Evolutionary Theory
Unfortunately, even after Hull's origi-
nal arguments, remnants of the class in-
terpretation are still around. What is most
surprising/distressing is that a class inter-
pretation should be espoused in recent
cladist literature. Given their original
emphasis on representation of genealogy
(Hennig, 1966), one would expect clad-
ists to be most amenable to a strictly lin-
eage view of species. For instance, Wiley
(1980; 1981, Chapter 2) settles the lin-
eage-class issue decidedly in favor of the
former. But the lineage interpretation-
indeed, the whole emphasis on genealo-
gy-is too theoretical to suit the empiri-
cist standards of an ever more clearly dis-
tinguishable subgroup of cladists. Let's
call the former subgroup, of which Wiley
is a member, the "phylogenetic" cladists,
in recognition of their adherence to Hen-
nig's original goal of phylogenetic sys-
tematics. And let's call the latter group
the "pattern" cladists. I will get to the
reason for that reference shortly.
In order to understand the rise of pat-
tern cladism, we have to consider, if only
briefly, the recent appeal of Popper's phi-
losophy of science (e.g., Popper, 1959,
1963) among evolutionists and system-
atists. The lesson usually drawn from
Popper is that science is readily distin-
guishable from pseudoscience and non-
science by virtue of the degree of falsi-
fiability of scientific hypotheses, and by
virtue of the earnest intent of scientists
to submit their hypotheses to crucial
tests, to reject those that fail the tests, and
to resubmit those that pass. The logic of
testing is supposedly straightforward.
From the hypothesis ostensibly under
test, and from additional "auxiliary" hy-
potheses, a prediction is deduced. If the
prediction fails to obtain, it follows that
at least one of the hypotheses from which
it was deduced is false. Of course, an os-
tensibly refuted hypothesis can be
 28 SYSTEMATIC
"'saved" by attributing the failure of the
prediction to the falsity of one of the aux-
iliary hypotheses. But Popperian scien-
tists are not in that business. They are
most interested in "crucial" tests, in
which the auxiliary hypotheses are un-
problematic-if only by convention-so
that the failure of the prediction indicates
the falsity of the hypothesis ostensibly
under test. Finally, the falsifiability of a
hypothesis is a measure of how many ob-
servably ascertainable predictions can be
derived from the hypothesis together
with unproblematic auxiliary hypothe-
ses: the more such predictions, the more
chances to refute the hypothesis. Science
as an activity is thus characterized by a
highly critical attitude toward highly fal-
sifiable hypotheses. As I say, this is an all
too common reading of Popper-his own
students, like Lakatos (1970), interpret
him more liberally.
In a flurry of articles in the late 70s,
cladists adopted Popperian ideals as their
own, and further distinguished their
brand of systematics from other brands in
terms of this supposedly superior set of
aims and methods (e.g., Wiley, 1975;
Platnick, 1977, 1979; Platnick and Gaff-
ney, 1977, 1978a, 1978b; Cracraft, 1978;
Gaffney, 1979; and see also Cartmill,
1981a).
During the same period, Popperian cri-
tiques of evolutionary biology increased
in intensity. Earlier Popperian critiques
of evolutionary biology, like Popper's
own (1957), had been pretty much ig-
nored, no doubt on account of the critics'
scant understanding of evolutionary con-
cepts and principles (e.g., see Ruse's re-
buttal 1977). But eventually evolutionists
turned the Popperian standards upon
themselves, and decided that much of
what passed as evolutionary biology did
not conform to those ideals. The persis-
tence of major disputes within evolution-
ary biology-disputes concerning pat-
terns as well as processes of evolutionary
change-seems to have contributed to
the feeling that the disputants were not
taking anomalies as seriously as good
Popperians should. For instance, critics
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ZOOLOGY VOL. 31
of gradualism and panselectionism have
accused their opponents of protecting
their hypotheses from ostensible refuting
evidence (Gould and Eldredge, 1977;
Gould and Lewontin, 1979; Lewontin,
1978). As a result of this sort of Popperian
self-scrutiny, evolutionary biology has
gotten itself into a "dreadful funk," as
Cartmill describes the prevailing mood
(1981b:88).
An indication of current uneasy feel-
ings about evolutionary biology is the de-
cision on the part of some cladists to
shuck whatever evolutionary aspirations
and connotations were originally associ-
ated with their program. Before moving
on to consider the new nonevolutionary
cladism in detail, though, let me just
reemphasize that part of what prompted
the cladists' change of heart was the ac-
ceptance of what they perceived to be
Popperian standards for judging science.
In this regard, it should be pointed out
that Popper's philosophy of science is by
no means generally accepted by philos-
ophers of science. Even Popper's stu-
dents and most avid defenders, like La-
katos (1970), have called for substantial
modifications to the Popperian program.
For instance, according to a popular al-
ternative conception of science defended
by Lakatos and others (e.g., Laudan,
1977), all scientific positions face an
C ocean of anomalies." If reason dictated
eliminating all hypotheses with anoma-
lies, we would have none left to investi-
gate; some must be saved for the enter-
prise to continue. On the other hand, if
all attempts to save hypotheses were rea-
sonable, we would be left with all the
hypotheses ever invented. So there must
be a point, such that, up to that point it
is reasonable to try to save an ostensibly
refuted position. That point, or the grade
of that continuum, is not determined
solely by the amount of ostensible coun-
terevidence, but also by rival positions.
That is, it is not unreasonable to try to
save a seemingly refuted position just be-
cause it has seemingly many counterin-
stances. But that tactic becomes less and
less reasonable in the face of more and
 CLASSES
more powerful rivals-rivals that increas-
ingly account for all the facts that the po-
sition in question accounts for, and that
increasingly account for facts at odds
with that position. As Lakatos sums up
the notion, "tests are at least-three-
cornered fights between rivals and ex-
periment .. ." (1970:115). And as Laudan
concludes, "All evaluations of research
traditions and theories must be made
within a comparative context. What mat-
ters is not, in some absolute sense, how
effective or progressive a tradition or the-
ory is, but, rather, how its effectiveness
or progressiveness compares with its ri-
vals" (1977:120).
3. A School of Systematics vs.
Evolutionary Theory
3.1 Apparently in response to the per-
ceived crisis in evolutionary biology,
cladists have taken more or less extreme
measures to sever their ties to that dis-
cipline. Wiley, at one extreme, is least
sceptical of evolutionary theorizing. He
advocates the original goal of represent-
ing strictly genealogical relationships,
and advocates incorporating into cladistic
methods whatever evolutionary perspec-
tives may illuminate those relationships
(including, for instance, the various
models of speciation-see Wiley, 1979;
1981, Chapter 2). Eldredge and Cracraft
emphasize that cladistic methods, as they
formulate and articulate them, require no
evolutionary assumptions other than de-
scent with modification (1980:4-5). In
other words, descent with modification is
the minimal evolutionary assumption
needed to construct a cladogram and to
use it to represent genealogical relation-
ships. The new cladists, on the other ex-
treme, have explicitly argued against in-
corporating any particular models of the
evolutionary process into cladistics (a
seminal paper in this regard is Platnick,
1979). Moreover, and more importantly
with regard to the purpose of this essay,
the new cladists have even given up the
goal of representing genealogy (e.g., Nel-
son and Platnick, 1981; Patterson, 1981).
Descent with modification is too much of
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AND CLADISTS 29
FIG. 2. See text for explanation.
an assumption. Even descent is too
much. Genealogy smacks too much of
evolution, and evolutionary hypothe-
sizing is under too much fire.
Put more positively, the new cladists
believe that cladistics per se has no "nec-
essary connection" with evolutionism
(e.g., Nelson and Platnick, 1981:164; Pat-
terson, 1981). What they mean by that is
that no evolutionary suppositions are
necessary to discover the sort of "pat-
tern" that they hypothesize/assume is
characteristic of the living world. Hence
the name "pattern" cladists. What sort of
pattern in this? It is a strict hierarchy of
groups, where the groups at one level are
nonoverlapping, or mutually exclusive,
and where each of the groups at one level
is completely included in the group at
the next highest level. In the manner of
representation of Venn diagrams, the
kind of pattern in question would look
something like Figure 2.
What do the groups in the diagram rep-
resent? Well, that is the $64,000 ques-
tion. I will get to that shortly. What is not
meant, however, is group-qua-genealogy
or lineage. The pattern cladists simply
hypothesize/assume that the living world
is characterized by a pattern like the one
above (about which we will know more
when we consider what the constituent
groups represent), and they believe that
cladistic methods untainted by any evo-
lutionism are the optimal means to dis-
covering the pattern. In what sense the
resulting enterprise is "cladistics," and
the resulting methods "cladistic" meth-
 30 SYSTEMATIC
xX y
w A B lutionary history. With respect to such a
FIGS. 3A and 3B. See text for explanation.
ods, I will leave it to the cladistic com-
munity as a whole to decide. In one not
uninteresting sense, of course, cladistics
is just what cladists do. And cladists are
the ones that belong to the Hennig So-
ciety and direct its course, etc.
So besides the "negative" program of
getting rid of all those evolutionary as-
sumptions that the pattern cladists want
to avoid, there is also this "positive" pro-
gram of getting rid of whatever assump-
tions they feel they can just as well do
without. It is hard to tell whether the pos-
itive or the negative aspects are the great-
est incentives for the development of the
movement. For instance, in his recent
Hennig Society lecture, Patterson (1981)
stressed what he seemed to consider a
positive aspect-namely that pattern cla-
distics is more "theory neutral" than the
original brand. But it is hard to tell
whether theory neutrality in this case is
the primary goal (and why), or whether
it is a byproduct of the apparent relief
that accompanies severing the connec-
tions with the ever more burdensome
discipline of evolutionary biology, "where
nothing seems accessible to investigation
or test, but where fantasy has free play"
(Patterson, 1981).
But the neutrality of pattern cladism
with respect to evolutionary theory is, I
believe, a myth. I will not argue that it
reflects or reinforces any particular evo-
lutionary theory-i.e., that it is positively
theory laden. I will argue instead that it
is theory antagonistic with respect to evo-
lutionary theory. It is at odds with current
evolutionary theorizing. And it under-
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ZOOLOGY VOL. 31
mines, and is undermined by, evolution-
ary theory for the same reasons that the
traditional class concept of species is.
The problem lies in the pattern cladists'
conception of "group."
3.2 What is a group? Originally, clad-
ists assumed that one branching lineage
had been produced in the course of evo-
tree, a natural group was conceived to be
any one stem broken at a branching
point, together with all the branches de-
scended from it, as in Figure 3A. Natural
groups were said to be "monophyletic"
in this sense. Assuming also descent with
modification, the original cladists figured
that they could recognize and distinguish
monophyletic groups on the basis of evo-
lutionary novelties that arose in the stem
lineage and were passed on unchanged
to the descendant branches. In other
words, different groups should be char-
acterized by different sets of such shared
derived characters, or "synapomorphies."
This is still the phylogenetic cladists'
conception of natural groups. It is impor-
tant to recognize that on this conception
of groups, what "makes" a group a real
group is its genealogical history, not the
synapomorphic characters that are used
to recognize it.
Note that groups so conceived and rec-
ognized can be ordered strictly hierar-
chically in terms of their distinguishing
sets of synapomorphies. If group W in
Figure 3A is recognized and distin-
guished in terms of characters a and b, X
in terms of c and d, Y in terms of e and
f, and Z in terms of g and h, then the
organisms that make up the groups fall
into the set-subset relations represented
by the Venn diagram in Figure 3B. There
is no partial overlapping here, only inclu-
sion and exclusion.
So here is the pattern cladists pattern
again. But the pattern cladists don't be-
lieve we need evolutionary assumptions
about genealogy, monophyly, or anything
else to generate it or to interpret it. For
the pattern cladists, groups are just col-
lections of organisms, distinguished by
the sorts of characters that allow the col-
 1982 CLASSES AND
lections to be so hierarchically ordered.
As Patterson sums up the program,
As far as I can see, that's all there is to cladis-
tics. ... And I want to emphasize that in pre-
senting it, I had no need to use any of the words
that have caused all the arguments over the last
15 years-words like monophyly, paraphyly, spe-
ciation, dichotomy, ancestry, adaptation-don't
need them. Now, of course, all those words have
to do with evolution, and I didn't need that word
either. Nor did I need any branching diagrams.
And, of course, half the quarrels over cladistics
are due to the mistaken belief that branching dia-
grams are about evolution. As I understand it,
cladistics is theoretically neutral so far as evo-
lution is concerned. It has nothing to say about
evolution. You don't need to know about evolu-
tion, or believe in it, to do cladistic analysis. All
cladistics demands is that groups have charac-
ters, and that the groups are nonoverlapping.
(Patterson, 1981)
3.3 So much-though not much-for
the pattern cladists' groups. Species are
similarly construed: they are just the
smallest groups. As Nelson and Platnick
construe them, "species are just the
smallest detected samples of self-perpet-
uating organisms that have unique sets of
characters" (1981:12).
Now this does not seem very different
from the traditional class interpretation of
species-the interpretation that led to the
difficulties discussed in Section 1. That
"having unique sets of characters" in-
deed means "having defining characters"
is acknowledged by Nelson and Platnick:
To state that a cladogram is a synapomorphy
scheme invites the rejoinder that a cladogram
must, therefore, be a phyletic concept. Not so,
for by "synapomorphy" we mean "defining char-
acter" of an inclusive taxon. True, all defining
characters, in the phyletic context, may be as-
sumed to be evolutionary novelties. But making
that assumption does not render it automatically
true; nor does it change the characters, the ob-
servations on which the characters are based, or
the structure of the branching diagram that ex-
presses the general sense of the characters: i.e.,
that there exist certain inclusive taxa ... that
have defining characters. (1981:324)
It would appear, then, that systematics in gen-
eral consists of the search for defining characters
of groups. Admittedly, the search seems to have
been abandoned, on occasion, by persons who
would search instead for overall phenetic simi-
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CLADISTS 31
larity, or overall gradistic similarity. But what
justification is there for abandoning the search
for defining characters? (1981:304)
What justification is there? How about
the discrepancies with evolutionary the-
ory noted in Section 1? That is, evolu-
tionary theorists do not recognize any
traits with respect to which species can-
not evolve, but pattern cladists insist that
there are such traits-namely, the defin-
ing traits. This discrepancy may seem in-
consequential to pattern cladists, who are
not particularly keen on evolutionary the-
ory anyway. But it's one thing to strive
for a brand of systematics that is neutral
with respect to evolutionary theory, and
another thing altogether to pursue a
brand of systematics at odds with current
evolutionary theorizing.
The usual rejoinder to this sort of crit-
icism is that classifications should be
based on the world, not on theories. A
system of classification based on evolu-
tionary theory would tell us more about
that theory than it would tell us about the
world. This sort of reasoning has, I think,
unreasonable appeal. In the first place,
the rejoinder is irrelevant in this case.
The question at issue here is not so much
whether systematics should be theory
neutral, but whether systematics should
be theory antagonistic. In the second
place, the rejoinder seems to suggest that
we can build classifications on the basis
of the world in the same manner that we
build museums on the surface of the
earth. We cannot build classifications "on
the world," but only on what we know
about the world. And what we purport to
know about the world is contained in our
best theories. As it happens, our best the-
ories about patterns of nature are evolu-
tionary theories. What nonevolutionary
rivals better explain geographic distri-
bution, the fossil record, developmental
similarities and differences, as well as
other adaptive and nonadaptive similari-
ties and differences? There are difficul-
ties with our evolutionary theories, as
with all theories. (Among our best evo-
lutionary assumptions, however, some
are less problematic than others. On any
 32 SYSTEMATIC
A B
FIGS. 4A and 4B. See text for explanation.
reasonable criterion of "problematic,"
descent with modification is less prob-
lematic than, say, any one model of spe-
ciation.) We may not-though I am not
convinced-wish to base systematics on
even our best evolutionary hypotheses.
We might base systematics on some other
purported knowledge of the world in-
stead. But our systematics could certainly
not be said to be based on our best
knowledge of the world if it were at odds
with our best evolutionary hypotheses.
3.4 Before wrapping up, I will consider
three possible means of recoRciling pat-
tern cladism with evolutionary theory,
without at the same time basing cladism
on evolutionary theory. Two of these pro-
posals won't work. The third requires
some cooperation from evolutionary
theorists. Consider first the possibility
that the pattern cladists don't really in-
tend for the characters that groups
"have" to be defining characters. Sup-
pose the characters are intended only to
distinguish groups and help us recognize
them. In short, a group's characters "de-
scribe" it rather than "define" it, in the
senses of those terms discussed in Sec-
tion 1.3. The problem with this sugges-
tion is that the pattern cladists offer no
other criteria for what it is to be a partic-
ular group than to have the characters as-
sociated with it. Thus it is hard to say
what in the world-literally what in the
world-the characters describe. The phy-
logenetic cladists do not have this prob-
lem. Their criteria for what it is to be a
group include being a monophyletic lin-
eage. Thus, the characters they associate
with a particular group describe some-
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ZOOLOGY VOL. 31
thing in the world, something with
boundaries in space and time, namely, a
monophyletic lineage. The characters
that a pattern cladist associates with a
group do not describe the group, but con-
stitute it. Without independent criteria
for what it is to be a group, group char-
acters must be defining characters.
Another suggestion batted around by
philosophers who are interested in sav-
ing a class interpretation of species is that
we construe species as "vague" or
"fuzzy" sets. Fuzzy set theories and log-
ics of vagueness were inspired by the in-
tuition that there are borderline cases of
class membership-cases in which it is
impossible to say, not by virtue of our ig-
norance, but by virtue of the way the
world is, whether an entity is or is not a
member of a particular class (see, e.g.,
Black, 1937). The fuzzy set theorist spells
out that intuition in terms of an interval
(0,1) specifying grades of membership.
To take a simple example, we might
specify the fuzzy set S of integers ap-
proximately equal to 10 in the following
manner. Each couple ilj stands for an in-
teger j together with its degree or grade
of membership i in S:
S = 0.1/7 + 0.5/8 + 0.8/9 + 1.0/10
+ 0.8/11 + 0.5/12 + 0.1/13.
(from Dubois and Prade, 1980:9-11)
Fuzzy set theory might allow for the
descent of species-qua-classes without
the instantaneous increase in frequency
of the daughter species' defining charac-
ters. That is, organisms without all the
daughter species' defining characters
might nonetheless belong, with a low
grade of membership, to the daughter
species. In that way, the frequency of de-
fining characters could increase continu-
ously from generation to generation of
lower to higher grade species members.
Whether such a fuzzy species concept
can be worked out in sufficient detail is
an interesting question. But fuzzy species
will not do for cladists of either persua-
sion. Fuzzy species would overlap in a
manner that would violate a central as-
sumption of pattern cladism. Moreover,
 1982 CLASSES
fuzzy species, viewed phylogenetically,
would not be strictly monophyletic. Con-
sider the phylogenetic tree of Figure 4A:
Suppose the evolutionary novelties that
eventually distinguish the two "new"
branches increase in frequency gradu-
ally, or at least not instantaneously. A
fuzzy set classification of species in this
case would include the constituents of
one new branch together with the earlier
constituents of the other branch, as in
Figure 4B, since the earlier members of
each new branch would not be distinct
enough (if at all) to exclude them from at
least low grade membership in the
species composed of all the constituents
of the other new branch. Such "species"
would not be strictly monophyletic.
Fuzzy species are simply contracladis-
tics, though some other kind of system-
atists might find some use for them.
Yet another means of reconciling pat-
tern cladistics with evolutionary biology
is one that requires the help of evolution-
ary biologists. The idea is to reformulate
evolutionary theories so that they are
about the evolution of lineages rather
than the evolution of species, and about
the increase in frequency of traits within
a lineage rather than the increase in fre-
quency of traits within a species. Then
our interpretations of species would be
independent of the manner in which we
describe and understand evolutionary
change. This solution is in line with, if
not exactly in the spirit of, Hull's recent
analysis of evolutionary theory in terms
of "replicators," "interactors," and "lin-
eages" (1980). At least this solution
works, though it requires that evolution-
ists are as keen on making their disci-
pline systematics-neutral as systematists
are on making theirs evolution-neutral.
In summary, and in conclusion, disil-
lusions concerning evolutionary theoriz-
ing, based in part on a naively falsifica-
tionist philosophy of science, have forced
a split among cladists. The disillusioned
group of "pattern" cladists seeks an evo-
lutionarily neutral brand of cladistics that
is not only better methodologically but
also better empirically than the original
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AND CLADISTS 33
brand. It is supposedly better methodo-
logically because it does not rely on the
supposedly unfalsifiable assumptions of
evolutionary biology. And it is suppos-
edly better empirically because it does
not require as many assumptions that
might not, after all, be true. But pattern
cladistics is not, after all, evolutionarily
neutral. It is at odds with evolutionary
thinking. It thus forces conceptual con-
fusions upon anyone who is not as will-
ing to give up evolutionary theorizing.
Perhaps the confusions can be resolved
without making such a choice. In the
meantime, though, it is worth consider-
ing whether the supposed methodologi-
cal and empirical achievements are
worth the price of the conceptual confu-
sions paid.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am very grateful to Bill Fink, Sara Fink, David
Hull, Philip Kitcher, Ed Wiley, and referees of an
earlier draft for helping me to clarify many of the
points in this paper. All the above are also, of
course, responsible for whatever confusions re-
main. Thanks too to Colin Patterson for the after-
noon he spent with us at the MCZ discussing his
position. Finally, I must acknowledge that I'm not
sure myself under what circumstances, if any, sci-
entists should take philosophers seriously.
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