Wolfgang wrote:

You clearly have very little experience with the diversity of Asian Elaphe. Many of these differ just as much from Pantherophis, or indeed from "real" Elaphe, as do Lampropeltis or Pituophis.



My response:

If that is the case, I welcome any study that would attempt to justify transferring species of Elaphe to other genera on the ground of morphological disparity. Utiger et al.'s study deals not with morphological disparity but with branching order. They clearly delimit their taxa only on the basis of branching order, not morphological disparity. Phylogeny means both morphological disparity and branching order. Utiger et al. ignore morphological disparity and their study fails to resolve branching order. Their taxonomy is therefore based on neither component of phylogeny. So, how can one claim that Utiger et al.'s new arrangement is based on "phylogeny."



Wolfgang wrote:

Your taxonomic philosophy clearly differs from that of Utiger and from most praticing taxonomists. No problem, but you wqill have to accept that you are in a minority, and the rest of us have moved on.



My response:

My taxonomic philosophy is indeed clearly different from that of Utiger et al. and from yours. But my taxonomic philosophy is clearly the same as that of H.G. Dowling, C.M. Bogert, Ernst Mayr, and Charles Darwin himself, not to mention a large number of veteran herpetologists who find no use for classifications that take into account only one of the components of phylogeny, namely branching order, while ignoring the other component: morphological disparity.



Science is not a popularity contest.

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