Bridges between Evolutionary Pattern and Process

Uc Pinna and Sallcs ask lor clarification on how cladistic analysis tests adaptational hypotheses de Pinna and Sallcs. 1990; Coddington, 1988 . They also [joint out that an alternative optimization exists lor character 3 in my 19881 fig. 2. Ynp. OK, I'll admit it. All readers of the previous paper are hereby instructed to believe that a new laxon has been discovered, identical to taxon D except for some convincing autapomorphies which need not concern us. Based on this new information, the previously reported optimization wins by one and only one step. Hey, close don't count in fladistics! Passing on to a more profound.issue. I have to confess a long-standing difficulty with the allegedly important distinction between "states of becoming" and "states of being". II something already is. I would guess it probably became in order to be. and if it is only becoming, it had to become from somewhere, and probably to somewhere as well, not to mention be while it is becoming. I am not sure whether I view adaptation as becoming rather than being or whether the distinction makes a difference. Mosi of de Pinna and Salles's remaining arguments tend to the same point: however desirable, no amount of mapping characters on cladograms has yet provided an "empirical bridge", "bridge concept", "empirical link", or even "true and empirical relations" to processes such as natural selection or process theories such as adaptation. Although I think the jargon peculiar to theories about theories often obfuscates simple issues anyone care to define "individual" in 50 pages or less. . I hope I understand more or less what they mean by "empirical bridge". In fact. I think the argument reduces to the question. "What is a bridge?" When bushwhacking through chasm-filled forests real or theoretical . people do differ on what ihey accept as trustworthy bridges (e.g. rock hoppers, waders. fallen tree walkers, vine swingers . 11 is a fair question. I will first summarize what I said, and then use the rhinoceratid example, or at least a fictive extrapolation of it. to demonstrate the tests. To review the backbone of the 1988 argument: