Wolfgang wrote:

Your argument about speciation is a red herring and irrelevant to the question of paraphyletic genera.



My response:

All new taxa, including higher taxa, originate by the process of speciation. Higher taxa do not originate from higher taxa. A novel species may arise from one of many species within a higher taxon. This new species may be so different that it deserves recognition as a different genus (for example, Lampropeltis warrants recognition because one population of one species of Elaphe evolved into a distinct species classifiable in this new genus while other populations of this species of Elaphe remain unchanged). In most cases this new species arise through the process of peripatric speciation (or even sympatric speciation), in which the parental species continues to live, unchanged by the speciation process, alongside the new species. The parental species is now paraphyletic. If this new species is classifiable in a different higher taxon, then the parental higher taxon, though unchanged, is also paraphyletic. Hence peripatric speciation can create paraphyletic higher taxa, not just paraphyletic species. Darwin and Darwinians like Ernst Mayr both recognize the central role of speciation in the evolution of higher taxa. If the Hennigians fail to see the same connection, then it is no wonder they are on a crusade to destroy the inevitable result of the process of evolution: paraphyletic taxa. It is no wonder that the opponents of the Hennigians are the Darwinians. The Hennigians do not understand evolution because they do not understand speciation. Darwin did not title his book "The Origin of Species" for nothing.

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