thirty-one years of systematic zoology-by david l. hull. systematic zoology, vol. 32, no. 4 (dec.,...

8/10/2019 Thirty-One Years of Systematic Zoology-by David L. Hull. Systematic Zoology, Vol. 32, No. 4 (Dec., 1983), pp. 315

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Thirty-One Years of Systematic ZoologyAuthor(s): David L. HullSource: Systematic Zoology, Vol. 32, No. 4 (Dec., 1983), pp. 315-342Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.for the Society of Systematic BiologistsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2413161.

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2/29

Syst.

ool.,

32(4):315-342, 1983

THIRTY-ONE

YEARS

OF

SYSTEMATIC

ZOOLOGY

DAVID L.

HULL

Department f

Philosophy,niversity

f

Wisconsin-Milwaukee,

Milwaukee,Wisconsin3201

Abstract.-The number

nd percentageof

pages devoted to

various topics n

Systematicoology

are traced from he

inception

of the

ournal

to the

present.

The

categories

used

include

papers

that:

a)

are

largely

descriptive; b) argue

for or

against

a

particular

axonomic

philosophy; (c)

apply

the

methods of a

particular

taxonomic

philosophy; (d) are

primarily

quantitative; e)

discuss

nomenclatural

problems,

nd are either

theoretical r

applied papers

in

(f)

evolutionary

theory, g)

phylogeny

reconstruction,

r

(h)

biogeography.

Changes

in

proportions

of contri-

butions

in

these

categories

are

mapped

onto

changes

in

editorship

of

the

journal to see what

effects

uch

changes

have

had

on the

sorts f

papers published.

The

changes

in

Editorof

primary

concern

nvolve the move from he

American Museum of

Natural

History

to the

University

f

Kansas in

1963 and the return o the

AmericanMuseum 10

years

ater n

1973.

Systematicoology;

taxonomic

philosophy;

evolutionary

ystematics; henetics;

cladistics;

numerical

taxonomy.]

In 1947

at a

meeting

of

the

American

Association for

the

Advancement of Sci-

ence,

the

Society of

Systematic

Zoology

was

formed nd had its

first nnual

busi-

ness

meetingthenext

year n

Washington,

D.C.

In

1952 the

Society

began

to

publish

Systematicoology.

R.

E.

Blackwelder

pro-

duced the first

umber.

Thereafter,he ed-

itorshippassed to John L. Brooks of Yale

University,

who

served as Editot

for

61/2

years.

In

1958 the

journal moved to

the

American

Museum of

Natural

History,

where Libbie H.

Hyman became

Editor

pro

tem

and, a

year ater, ditor.After

1/2ears

in

New

York,

the

journal

moved to the

University

f

Kansas,

where it

was edited

successively by George

W.

Byers

(three

years),

RichardF.

Johnstonfour

years)

nd

A.

J.Rowell

(threeyears). n

1973 the our-

nal returned to the American Museum,

where Niles

Eldredge and

Gareth

Nelson

edited it for

three

years,

succeeded

by

Randall T.

Schuh

for

another

threeyears.

In

1980

James Dale

Smith

of the

Natural

History Museum

of Los

Angeles

County

took

over

fora

three-year

erm.

Everyonewho has

read

Systematic

ool-

ogy

through

the

years

has

his or her

own

ideas about

the

effects hat

these changes

in editorshiphave had on the contentof

the

journal,

but

such

casual, haphazard

observations are

notoriously untrustwor-

thy.

In

this paper

I

trace the

historyof

Systematic

oologyfrom its

inception

in

1952 to the

present.

What percentage of

papers have been

largely

descriptive?Of

those

papers

that

have

actually

concerned

taxonomic

philosophy, what

percentage

have

favored particular

hilosophy; how

many

opposed? How have the

ratios of

positive

to negative

papers

dealing

with

particular schools changed through the

years?

What percentage of

papers have

been

largely applications of

particular

taxonomic

philosophies,

and how

many

general discussions of

quantitative meth-

ods?

Distinguishing

between

theoretical

and

applied

papers,

what

percentagehave

concerned the

evolutionary

process,

bio-

geography

and

phylogeny

reconstruc-

tion?

What

percentage

of

papers through

the

years

have dealt with

nomenclatural

issues? Finally, how have the books re-

viewed

in

Systematic

oology

ared?

The

question

of

greatest interest

is,

however,

have

changes

in

Editor

been ac-

companied

by

changes

in

the constitution

of the

ournal?

Sociologists

of science

claim

thateditors nd their

preferences

re

very

significant actors

n

the

publishing pro-

cess. For

example,

W. D.

Garvey 1979:84)

stated

that,

like

most

scientists,

most ed-

itorshave attitudes bout whatconstitutes

quality

n their

ournal.

These

attitudes

re

influenced by their

theoretical

bias,

their

methodological

preferences, tc.,

nd

they

315

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3/29

316

SYSTEMATIC ZOOLOGY

VOL. 32

tend to select consulting editors

and ref-

erees who share them." Has

this been true

of the Editors f Systematicoology?

would

be less than candid to

not

admit

that ex-

pected significant hanges when System-atic Zoology moved to Kansas and again

when

it

leftKansas

forthe American

Mu-

seum, while

I

did not anticipate any rad-

ical changes in editorial policy when the

journal

moved across

the

continent from

New

York to Los

Angeles. Why

is this?

The obvious answer is that the shiftto

Kansas was accompanied by the rise

n the

United States of

a

particular

chool of

tax-

onomy

centered at

Kansas,

and the move

to the American Museum happened to co-

incide with the rise

in

the United States

of

yet

another

philosophy

of

systematics,

this time

emanating

from the American

Museum.

Although

one event cannotcause

another unless the two events are coinci-

dent,

coincidence does

not

guarantee

causation.

Perhaps

these correlationswere

merelyaccidental. After ll, Allen Press is

in

Lawrence, Kansas. Perhaps that was ac-

tually

the most relevant causal

factorfor

the move to Kansas. However, I thinkthat

it

s

verydifficulto discount

the

roles that

the

early leaders

of

these

two schools

of

taxonomy played. Protests

to

the

officers

of

the Society of Systematic oology

from

Robert R. Sokal about Hyman's treatment

of

papers

with numbers

in

them was

in-

strumental

n

transferring

he

journal

to

Kansas,

while

Nelson's

complaints

to

Rowell were an

instigating

cause for the

move to

New

York.

Systematicoology

had

been at Kansas long enough. It was time

fora

change.

One

chief difference etween the two

situations s thatSokal was never Editor

of

the journal, and Byers can hardly

be

termed

a

strong

advocate

for either

phe-

netics

or

numerical

taxonomy. Although

Johnston

nd Rowell were somewhat

more

committed to the

phenetics movement,

neitherof themwas

extremely

ocal

in his

position. Yet, my

nitial

suspicion

was that

having a journal at one's own institution

is liable to make access to its

pages

a bit

easier.

The

situation

afterthe move

from

Kansas is somewhat

clearer.

All four sub-

sequent Editors

were

openly

committed

o

the cause

of

cladistic analysis,

and one of

them was Gareth Nelson.

One

minor

but irritatingdifficulty

n

deciding theeffecthatchanges in editor-ship had on editorial policy in Systematic

Zoology

s

that some Editorswilled quite a

few papers to their successors,while oth-

ers cleared out their files before leaving

office. second

complication

s

that,

t the

end

of 1975, Eldredge and Nelson insti-

tuteda

system

f

Associate Editors.As

this

system usually worked, Associate Editors

could

reject paper

on their wn but

could

accept

one

only contingent pon

the

Man-

aging Editor's approval. On occasion, an

Associate Editor disagreed with the Man-

aging

Editor.

A few

cases

of

such

disagree-

ments are fairly well

known.

However,

because no

figures

exist

concerning

the

number of these disagreements or their

eventual

resolution,

I

have

ignored

this

complication.

I

have divided papers ac-

cording to Managing Editors,not Associ-

ate

Editors, ttributing ossibly too much

influence to the former. also have not

distinguishedbetween Eldredgeand Nel-

son.

The majoromission

in

thispaper is that

I

do not discuss the refereeingprocess. In

the

early years, rejection

rates were

quite

low, rarely xceeding 10%. Under such cir-

cumstancesone cannot attribute oo much

influence to the Editor.

But,

as the size

of

the

ournal ncreased,

o did

rejection

ates.

Under

Johnston hey ranged

from20% to

over 30%.

Thereafter, hey

continued to

rise until theyreached as high as 50% to

60%.

The

higher

the

rejection rates,

the

more influence

an

Editor can have. One

might

also

expect

author dissatisfaction o

correlate

trongly

with increased

rejection

rates.ButrejectionratesfromEditortoEd-

itor are notstrictly omparable because of

the

different

eporting rocedures

used

by

different

ditors,

some

including papers

sent

back

for

revision,

others not.

I

have

omitted

any

reference to the

refereeing

process chieflyfortwo reasons. First, t is

confidential,

nd second the relevant

data'

are

not available.

(The Systematic oology

archives

at

the Smithsonian Museum

are



4/29

1983

ANALYSIS OF

SYSTEMATIC

ZOOLOGY

317

very sparse until

the tenure of Eldredge

and Nelson.)

A few

examples of disputes

over the handling

of

papersare legendary,

but

I think t

would detract

from he pur-

poses of this paper

to

discuss

them here.

Any impressions I mightgive would be

just that-impressions and nothing

more.

As dissatisfying s my

decision is likely to

be

to

certain

readers,

n this

paper

I deal

only withthepublic face

of

Systematic

o-

ology, he

resultsof the

refereeing rocess

and not that process itself.

Categorizing

the

papers

in

Systematic

Zoology

for a

period

of 31

years during

which

issues,

alliances, nterests,

nd

even

terminology ave changed drastically

s

far

from easy. I had always been convinced

thattheway one categorizes subjectmat-

ter strongly nfluences he results

of

one's

investigations,but

the current tudy has

driven this truth

home to me

more

con-

vincingly than any

general arguments

could have.

For

example,

n the

earlyyears,

the Kansas school

was pushing two, t east

partially ndependent,positions-phenet-

ics and

numerical taxonomy. Phenetics

concerned

a

philosophy

of classification.

According to one overly condensed char-

acterization of

this

philosophy,

classifica-

tions

should

be

constructed

on the basis

of

numerous, unweighted (or equally

Weighted) characters,

t least

initially,

o

that

organisms

are clustered according to

overall

similarity.

Numerical taxonomy

embodies the conviction

that the

proce-

dures

of classification hould

be

as

quan-

titative s

possible.

Early

dvocates of these

twoviews saw a close connection between

them.

n

order

to be

sufficientlyuantita-

tive and

objective,

a classificationhad to

be

phenetic-at

least

initially.

As it

turns out,

there s a large overlap

between

papers advocating phenetic phi-

losophyand quantitativemethods, t least

in

the

early years,

but then the

two seem

to

have

gone

their

eparate

ways.

The con-

troversy

ver

phenetics

ubsided

while the

number

of

papers utilizing

or

discussing

quantitativemethods remained high. In

this

paper

I

treat

the

controversies over

taxonomic

philosophy

as

primary

nd

the

use

of

quantitative

methods

as

secondary.

My ustification

or hisdecision

is thatob-

jections

to quantitative methods were

short-lived,

while

the

controversies

over

taxonomic

philosophy

continue.

Rather

quickly the question became

not

whether

to use quantitative methods but which

ones.

Classing

all

quantitative

papers

to-

gether

year afteryear would

not

be very

instructive. Papers advocating quantita-

tive methods

appeared

in

Systematic

ool-

ogy ong

before the Kansas

group got

to-

gether,

ncluding

a

posthumous

paper by

Stroud

1953),

a close friend f

Sokal's

from

college. And

many

of

the

quantitative

pa-

pers

after the advent of

Numerical Tax-

onomy had

no

apparent

connection

to the

efforts f Sokal and his group. In thispa-

per

I am

not

interested

n

the

frequency

of

disembodied

ideas but in the influence

of

particular

esearch

programs

n

the

sys-

tematics

community.However, ignoring

all the

papers

in

Systematicoologywhich

advocated

quantitativemethods,

but did

not

happen to mention pheneticphiloso-

phy,would also be

misleading.

The

efforts

of the

group of workers

initially

located

at

Kansas did

give

increased

impetus

to

the use ofquantitativemethods n system-

atics.

My

decision was to

score

papers

first

on

professed systematic

philosophy

and

then to

add later

two

additional sorts of

papers-those

applying phenetic methods

and those that discuss

quantitative meth-

ods.

Although

this

compromise

s

farfrom

ideal,

it is the best I could do.

Cladistics

also

provided

some

problems.

Cladistics as

a taxonomic

philosophy

had

two independent origins in the United

States-J.

S.

Farris,

first t the

University

of

Michigan

and

then

at

Stony Brook,

nd

Gareth

Nelson

at the

American Museum.

Initially,

Farris was concerned

with de-

veloping quantitative

methods for

infer-

ring phylogenies.

Later

he became

in-

creasingly involved

in

debates

over

taxonomic

philosophy,becoming

the

chief

critic of

phenetic

taxonomy.

Of

course,

otherworkerswere also

writingpapers on

numericalcladisticsat thetime, ncluding

Sokal himself.The

question

s how to

score

these

papers.

To

begin

with,

most of

the

papers

in numerical

cladistics do

not

con-



5/29

318

SYSTEMATIC

ZOOLOGY

VOL.

32

cern taxonomic

philosophy

but

phyloge-

ny

reconstruction

Fitch and

Margoliash,

1967;

Fitch,1971). The

two, of

course, are

not

unconnected.

Anyone who argues

that

phylogenies are

impossible to

reconstruct

is not likely to argue that classifications

should

be based on

phylogeny.However,

devising methods for

reconstructing

hy-

logeny can be

and usually

has been

dis-

tinctfrom

heformulation

f

methods for

translating

hylogenetic

nformation nto

classifications.

n

thispaper,

I

distinguish

between the two.

Many

numericalcladists

emphasize the

numerical

side of their

work.

I

have

scored these

papers

as con-

tributing o "numericaltaxonomy" n thebroad

sense

(quantitative

methods). Other

numerical

cladists

emphasize the

cladistic

side of

their work

in

opposition to

phe-

netics.

I

have scored these

papers

as con-

tributions to

cladistic

philosophy,

not

"numerical

taxonomy."

Subdividing nu-

merical

cladistics

in

this

way

is

likely

to

strike

ome as unnatural. f

my goal were

to show

the

continuinguse of

quantitative

methods n

systematics,

t

would

be,

but

I

see no real point in documentingthe ob-

vious.

A

significant

number

of

practicing

systematists

se

quantitative

methods.

In

this

sense, "numerical

taxonomy"

has

triumphed. The

interesting

question is,

how

about

phenetics?

I

have

made

a parallel

decision for cla-

distics and

vicariance

biogeography.

Whether

or not there

is

a

necessary

con-

nection

between

these two sets of

deas,

it

just

so

happens

that

nearly

all

the

papers

arguing for vicariance biogeography are

by

cladists, nd these

papers

have

contrib-

uted

indirectly o the

cladistic

movement.

Ignoring

them

would

be

misleading.

In-

cluding them with

papers

arguingfor the

principles

of cladistic

systematics

would

be

just

as

misleading.

I

have

opted

to

add

two

additional sortsof

papers

to the

ist of

papers

classified as

cladistics-those

ap-

plying

cladistic

methods

and those

advo-

cating

vicariance

biogeography.

As

in

the

case ofphenetics, have represented hese

three

classes of

papers

so

that

nyone

who

disagrees

with

the

decisions

I

have made

can

tell which

papers

are which.

By now it should be

obvious that have

not employed a pure strategy

n categoriz-

ing the papers that have

appeared in Sys-

tematic oology.

have not classifiedthem

entirely n terms of similarity

f content

or entirely in terms of the people who

wrote

them and their professional

alle-

giances. Instead,

I

have

attemptedto bal-

ance

these two

considerations,paying

at-

tention both to the content

of

the papers

and

to their authors. As

dissatisfying

s

this compromise may be,

the

strictutili-

zation of

"pure"

methods

of

classification

produced monstrous

categories-group-

ing together papers

by deadly enemies.

Scientists ike to thinkof science as an en-

tirely

erebral

process,

a

conflictbetween

disembodied

ideas,

but scientists re

sup-

posed

to

be

partial

to

evidence,

and

all

evi-

dence indicates

thatthis view of science is

mistaken.

At least

in

the short run, who

presents an idea

matters s well as what

this idea happens

to be.

Perhaps

science

should not be

this

way,

but it is.

Finally,

a

list

of

warnings.

I

have limit-

ed

myself

almost

entirely

to the contro-

versies that have takenplace in the pages

of

Systematicoology

nd thegroupslocat-

ed

in the

United States.

I

mention books

and

papers

that

ppeared

in

other

ournals

only

in

passing.

Phenetics was also an

is-

sue

in

GreatBritain,

nd

cladistics

origi-

nated

in

Germany.

have

largely gnored

these

aspects

of the controversies.

Hence,

when

I

talk of "cladistics"

or

"phenetics,"

I

always

mean to

imply

"in the United

States" even when

I

do not mention the

restriction.Many papers also dealt with

more than one

topic

and were classed

in

more

than

one

category

e.g.,

a

given pa-

per might

count as

a contribution o cla-

distics, biogeography

and

phylogeny

re-

construction). Hence,

most

percentages

across

categories

tend to add

up

to more

than 100%.

Many papers

were,

as one

might expect,

borderline cases and could

have

been

scored as naturally

n one

cat-

egory

as

in another.

Others

might

have

preferred thercategories nd have scored

particular apers

differently.

ecause

of the

number

of decisions that went into the

tabulations

I

present

in

this

paper, they



6/29

1983

ANALYSIS OF SYSTEMATIC

ZOOLOGY

319

Pages

600

Yale I

American

Kansas

I

American L A

YaleMuseum

KansasMuseum

Msu

550 I

I

500

I

I I I I

I

I

450

I I

I I I I

I

40011III

350

1

1

1

I I

I

3001IIII

250

200

A1r 1E

1cu1 mi1

150 1 1

lEdredgel

100

Brooks Hyman j Byers

Johnston

j

Rowell akNelson j

501

I

POINTS

OF

VIEW

/

I

I

-,J

,,A

0 L - -. -

l \8

REVIEWS

52 53

54 55

56 57 58 59

60 61 62 63 64 65 66

67 68 69 70

71

72 73

74 75 76 77 78 79 80

81

82

FIG.

1.

Number

of pages per

year devoted to articles,

pointsof view, and

reviews in Systematic

oology.

should

be taken

with a

grain of

salt. As

numbers,they

may look

exact,

objective,

etc.,

but they

are not.

As a result,

he

only

trends

and

differences

hat can

bear any

weight are

those

that are

extremely

marked. To

give the

readera feel

for

how

I

classified

papers, my

classification for

1975 is

included in

the

Appendix.

GROWTH OF THE

JOURNAL

During the first

ozen

years of its

exis-

tence, Systematic

oology

veraged

roughly

200

pages a

year.While it

was at

Kansas,

the

journal

expanded

steadily

to its

cur-

rent size of

roughly 500

pages a

year.

Within

few

ssues,

Systematic

oology et-

tled down

to its

current

format-articles,

points

of

view, book

reviews

and news.

Initially,

one

difference

between articles

and

points

of

view was

length.

Through

1977, ong points ofview tended to aver-

age

about

eight

pages.

In

1978

points

of

view increased in

length;

one

by Farris

n

1980was

the

longest at 22

pages. A second

difference etween articlesand points of

view

is

tone. From

the

start, oints

of

view

have tended to

be somewhat

more polem-

ical than

articles nd their

one a good deal

sharper.

The

percentage

of

pages devoted

to

articles

climbed

steadily

in

the

early

years

until

the

journal moved

back

to

the

American

Museum

in

1974,

when it

began

to decline.

In

1980,

the

number of

pages

taken

up by points

of

view and reviews

equaled thatfor rticles see Fig. 1 and Ta-

ble 1).

If

ncreases

n the

size of the

points

of

view

section

are

any

indication

of

pe-

riods of

increased controversy, he

peak

years

were

1969,1975 and

1978-1982. Tone

to one

side, articles and

points

of

view

have

dealt with

exactly the

same topics.

Furthermore,

the

policy

regarding

re-

sponses

in

Systematic

oology

during most

of its existence was

that an author

could

respond

to an

article,

the

author

of

the

originalarticle could thenrespondto that

response, and that was that. As a

result,

papers

that amounted to

responses

to re-

sponses

were

submitted as

independent



7/29

320 SYSTEMATIC

ZOOLOGY VOL.

32

TABLE 1.

Percentageof pages devoted

to each sub-

division

of

Systematic

oologyduring

the tenure of

each

Editor.

Points

Editor Articles

of view

Reviews

Brooks, 85 8 2

Hyma'n

92 7 1

Byers

87

8 2

Johnston

81

12 3

Rowell 86

7 3

Eldredge and Nelson 79

10 7

Schuh

65 19

10

Smith

58

29

11

articles, further

blurring

the distinction

between articles

nd points

of view. In all

subsequent tabulations, have classed ar-

ticles

and points

of view together. Book

reviews are treated eparately.

Both membershipand circulation fig-

ures for he ournal

have also reflected p-

surges

n

controversy.

n

1948,

the

Society

had 343 chartermembers. By

1952 mem-

bership had surpassed 1,200,

and

371

ad-

vanced subscriptionshad been

placed for

the journal. Figure 2 shows the fluctua-

tions

in

circulation

nd

membership

from

1962

to the present. The firstpeak

oc-

curred

n

1968-1969

at the height

of

the

controversyver phenetic taxonomy.

Dur-

ing theearly1970s,both membership

nd

circulationbegan to sag, only

to pick up

again

as

the controversy ver cladistics

be-

gan

to heat

up.

In

1982

the

figures

began

to

drop

once again.

If

these figures

re any

indication,controversy

as been good for

the Societyand its journal, at least as far

as

numbers are concerned.

These statistics

notwithstanding,ontributors

o the our-

nal have frequently omplained

of

what

2900

Kan

sas

American

Museum

2800L

2700 Museum

2600

2500

2400

2300

2200

2100

2000

1900

1800

1700

1600

1500

|

/M

EMBERSHIP

1400

1300 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 78 79

80

81

82

FIG.

.

Figures

for

membership

n the

Society

of

Systematic

oology

and

subscriptions

o

Systematic

oology

between

1964

and

1982.



8/29

1983 ANALYSIS OF

SYSTEMATIC ZOOLOGY

321

they perceived to be

excessive polemics.

Such objectionssurfaced

early.

For

exam-

ple,

beforethe

ournalwas a year old,

one

subscriber

wrote,"Enclosed please find a

one-dollar bill ($1.00), my dues for 1952;

and, also accept my resignation fromthe

above Society, s

its principles do not ap-

peal to

me.

We need more old-fashioned

constructive fforts, ot the communistic

'tearing down of all old established rules

and

methods"' (Syst.Zool., 1:138, 1952). It

is quite easy to

determinehow much dues

have

increased since 1952, less easy to

gauge the rise and fall ofpolemics.

PURPOSES OF THE

JOURNAL

According othe nitial tatement n the

inside back cover of

Systematicoology, he

purpose

of

the

journal

was

to

encourage

the preparationof"contributions n basic

aspects

of all fields

of

systematics, rinci-

ples and problems;to

provide a suitable

forum for

discussion

of the

problems of

the

systematist

nd

his methods; and to

report as news the other activities of the

Society

of

Systematic

Zoology."

Listed

among

the

topics

solicited were

"princi-

ples and the applicationsof principlesof

wide implicationand

general

interest n

any phase

of

systematics,

uch as

compar-

ative anatomy,

zoogeography, paleontol-

ogy, taxonomy,

lassification,volution,or

genetics."

As

explicit

s

this statement

was,

Blackwelder

(1952:92),

as

Secretary-Trea-

surer of the

Society,

had to

publish

the

followingreminder

n the

second number

of

the

journal:

Ithas perhaps not been sufficientlymphasized

that

Systematicoology

s

not ntended for he

pub-

lication of

descriptive

papers.

The

Council

sees its

field

as the

philosophic aspect

of

systematics,

ts

principles

and

problems,

as well as

news

of

sys-

tematists,

heir

nstitutions, ourses,

and

publica-

tions.

Systematic

material s not

completelyruled

out,

but

it

must be subordinate to the

discussion

of

principles.

A

year

after

Byers

took over the editor-

ship

of

the

journal

in

1963,

its statement

of

purpose

was made even more

pointed:

Contributions

elating

to

principles

and

method-

ology

of

systematics,

s well as

articles

in

such

fields as

evolution,

morphology, zoogeography,

paleontology, genetics

and

classification

hat

bear

directlyon systematics, nd other papers of

gen-

eral interest to

systematists

re

particularly de-

sired. Taxonomic

descriptions, evisions, nd

keys,

or papers on

anatomy, physiology, ecology, etc.,

having

little or

nothing

to do with

systematics

cannot be accepted [Syst. ool., 1964].

When

Rowell became

Editor n

1971,he

dropped the final sentence

of

the above

description,

and

finally,

when

Eldredge

and Nelson assumed the

editorship

three

years ater, hey

substituted he

following

brief

statement

n

1975

from

the

Consti-

tution

of the

Society:

The

object of this

ociety

hall be the

advancement

of

the

science of

systematic oology

in

all its as-

pects of theory,principles, methodology, and

practice,

for

both

living

and fossil animals with

emphasis

on areas of common interest o all

tax-

onomists

regardless

of individual

specialization.

Throughout he

history

f

Systematic

o-

ology,

he

intent of

the Council

and suc-

cessive Editors has been

clear. The main

purpose

of the

journal was to

publish pa-

pers

on

taxonomic

theory

first nd

fore-

most,

and

papers

on other

topics only to

the extent hat

they

bore

directly

n taxo-

nomic theory.Such good intentionswere

easier to

proclaim

than to

practice. No

sooner had

Blackwelder

reminded

the

readers

of

the journal

that t did not pub-

lish descriptive

papers than

Brooks

had to

ask

the Council

to

authorize him to

pub-

lish just such

papers

in

order to

keep the

journal up

to

size

(Blackwelder,

1977:114).

Although

such

categories

are difficult o

define and even more

difficult

o

apply

in

particularcases,

the

only

conclusion

that

one can draw afterreading through 31

years

of

the

ournal

s that

more

pages

have

been

devoted

to

descriptive

work than to

any

other

topic.

From

its

inception

until

Schuh took

over

as Editor n

1977,

roughly

50% of

the

pages

of

Systematicoology

ave

been taken

up

with

descriptions

of chro-

mosome

numbers, geographic

distribu-

tions, particular

phylogenies,

classifica-

tions and the

like

(see Fig.

3

and Table

2).

Giventheprofessedgoals ofthe ournal,

authors tried

to

make their

papers appear

as theoreticaland

philosophical

as

possi-

ble, but

in most cases

they

were not

very



9/29

322

SYSTEMATIC

ZOOLOGY

VOL. 32

100

%

Brooks Hymon

Byers

Johnston Rowell

ldredge

Schuh

Smith

90%

RoIweIllaNelsoni

Scu

Smt

80%X0

1

I

I

I

I

l

I

20%

~

~

~~~I

I

I

I

I

I

I

I

70

0/

60%

I

I

50%1

I

40%

30%

Lii

20

/IIIIIII

0%

1

1

I

I

I

I

I

0

%

52 53 54

55

56 57 58

59 60 61

62

63

64

65

66

67

68

69 70 71

72 73 74 75

76

77

78

79

80

81

82

FIG.

3.

The

percentage of

pages per

year

that

are

largely

descriptive.

successful.

For

example,the

first

aper

to

appear in

the

journal, by

Alexander Pe-

trunkevitch

1952), the

first

President

of

the

Society, was

entitled

"Principles of

Classification s Illustratedby Studies ofArachnida."

Although

Petrunkevitch

be-

gan and

ended his

paper

with

allusions

to

"unraveling

the

mysteryof

evolution,"

there s

little n

his

paper that

can

count

as

principles

of

classification.

Similarly,

most

papers entitled

something ike

"The

Evolution

of the

House

Mouse"

were

straightforward

escriptions

of

particular

taxonomic

groups,

their

characteristics,

distributions, hromosome

numbers,

etc.

TABLE 2.

Percentage of

pages during

the

tenure

of each

Editor

devoted

largely to

the presentation

f

data and

descriptions.

Editor

Percent

Brooks

50

Hyman

58

Byers

44

Johnston

50

Rowell

55

Eldredge and Nelson 62

Schuh

35

Smith

28

They

might

conclude

witha

paragraph or

two on

gene

flow,but

that

usually

was

about it.

Most of the

papers

listed as

de-

scriptive re

ust

that,

escriptive, ut

some

also containedenough general discussion

to

count

as

theoretical

s

well.

In

classifying

paper

as

"descriptive,"

have no

intention of

denigrating t.

De-

scription s a

necessary

part

of

science. In

fact,

n

a

poll of

the

members of

the So-

ciety of

Systematic

Zoology published

in

1981

(Syst.Zool.,

30:224,

1981),

17.8% of

those

responding

wanted the

journal to

publish

more

"substantive,

empirical

pa-

pers

including

materials,

the use of

ex-

amples in theoreticalpapers with appli-

cation to actual

cases."

The

preferences

f

many

readers

notwithstanding, ystematic

Zoologywas not

founded to

publish

pri-

marily

descriptive

work.

Until the

editor-

ships

of

Schuh and

Smith, when the

fig-

ures

dropped

to 35%

and

28%,

respectively,

it did

(see

Fig.

3

and

Table

2). Even

though

taxonomic

philosophy

was to

be the

main

focus of the

journal,

papers

dealing pri-

marily

with

taxonomic

philosophy

aver-

aged only 17% under Brooks, gradually

climbing

to

a

high

of 30%

under

Johnston,

and

dropping

again

to

a low

of 10%

under



10/29

1983

ANALYSIS OF SYSTEMATIC

ZOOLOGY 323

50

/0

rooks

Hyman

Byers Johnston

I

Rowell

I

Eldredgel

Schuh

I

Smith

BroksH mola

jNelsoni

400/

I

35/

I

25

%

20

%II

15

%II

100/

ILi

52 53 54 55

56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 6465 6667 68 69

70

71

72 73 74 75 76

77

7879 80 81 82

FIG. 4.

The

percentage

ofpages per yeardiscussing

taxonomic

philosophy.

Eldredge and Nelson, o'nlyto rise again

abruptlyunder

Schuh and Smith

see Fig.

4 and

Table 3).

During the early

years of

the

ournal, the

first eally big

debate was

over the

subspeciesquestion

(see later dis-

cussion);

the

issues

turned s much on dif-

ferences n

beliefs

about the

evolutionary

processas about

taxonomicphilosophy. If

papers

concerning this

controversy are

disregarded,the

percentages of

pages de-

voted to taxonomicphilosophy are even

TABLE

3. Percentageof pages

during

the

tenure

of each Editor

devoted

to

taxonomic

philosophy.

Editor Percent

Brooks

17

Hyman

22

Byers 25

Johnston

30

Rowell 17

Eldredge

and

Nelson

10

Schuh

32

Smith 33

lower (e.g., Brooks 9%, Hyman 14% and

Byers 23%).

Others might

well score individual pa-

pers

differently

han

I

have,

but

it

would

be difficult o avoid

the conclusion that

papers

dealing primarily

with taxonomic

philosophy have

not

been

as

prominent

n

the pages of

Systematic oology

s succes-

sive statements

f

purpose

might

ead one

to

expect.

Looking

back

over

the first 5

yearsof the ournal,Blackwelder1977:207)

raised

just

this objection,complaining

of

so

many

studies

of

"evolution,

statistics,r

the revisionary taxonomy

of animals."

Even so, Slater (1978) responded

thatthe

journal

has been the chief medium

through

which the

great conceptual

de-

bates between various schools

of taxono-

my

have been aired. Slater

is

surely right,

but this

end has been accomplished

in

roughly

23%

of the

pages

of

the ournal.

TAXONOMIC PHILOSOPHIES

The

question

that

s

likely

to be of

great-

est interest

o

long-time

readers of System-



11/29

324

SYSTEMATIC ZOOLOGY

VOL.

32

aticZoology

s how

many

pages

ofthe our-

nal have

been

devoted

to

the various

taxonomic

philosophies.

Once

again, de-

finingthe

relevant

categories

s not

easy,

especially

n

the

earlyyearswhen

the

ines

were notclearlydrawn.For example,dur-

ing thefirst

ecade of

the

ournal,the

pre-

vailing view

was,

roughly

speaking,

that

the evolutionary

process

and phylogeny

were

somehow

relevant

to classification.

Species

had

to be the units

delimited

by

reproductive

isolation,

and

higher

taxa

should

reflect

phylogeny.

The only

real

opponents

of this view

were

Blackwelder,

Alan

Boyden,

R. S.

Bigelow,

and Thomas

Borgmeier.

According

to Blackwelder

and

Boyden (1952:31), the "grand object of

classification verywhere

s the same.

It is

to

group

theobjects

ofstudy

n accordance

with their

essential

natures."

Borgmeier

(1957:53)

agreed, contending

that,

as the

science of

order, systematics

s a pure

sci-

ence

of

relations,

unconcerned

with time,

space,

or

cause."

These

systematists

greed

that evolution

has occurred

and that the

distribution

forganisms

now

apparent

s

the resultof phylogeny,but theysaw no

reason

to allow

such

considerations

to in-

trude

into

taxonomy,

nd numerous

rea-

sons

to exclude

them.

Phylogeny

s

too dif-

ficult

to reconstruct,

the

little

fossil

evidence

available

is too

spotty,

our un-

derstanding

of the evolutionaryprocess

is

highly

contentious,

nd characters

re ba-

sic

anyway.

f

the

only

data that

a

system-

atisthas available

are characters,

f

every-

one

always

begins

with

characters,

hen

why not just stick with charactersand

abandon

idle speculation

about

phyloge-

ny

and the evolutionary

process,

at

least

in

conjunction

with

classification?

If

all

I

were

doing

was classifying

to-

gether

papers

urging

similar views,

these

early

objections

to the

prevalent

"evolu-

tionary"philosophy

might

well

be

count-

ed

as contributions

o

phenetic

taxonomy

or even to

certain

varieties

of

cladistics.

The

criticisms

ound

very

imilar.

But these

authorswould rightly bject.Neitherphe-

netics

nor

cladistics

as scientific

move-

ments

existed

at

the time

in

the United

States

and,

even

after

they

did

emerge,

TABLE 4. Percentage

of

pages

devoted to each

taxonomicphilosophy during

the tenure

of each Ed-

itor.

Evolu-

tionary Phenetic Cladistic

Editor taxonomy taxonomy

taxonomy

Brooks 16

-

-

Hyman

16

11

-

Byers 20

16 7

Johnston

12 19

8

Rowell

11

9

9

Eldredge

and

Nelson

5

1 8

Schuh

14

9

30

Smith 6 15 30

these early critics

of

evolutionarytaxono-

my kept their distance. Blackwelder for

one

claimed

to be

urging quite

a

different

philosophy

of

classification,

he

philoso-

phy implicit

in the

practice

of

most tax-

onomists,

a

philosophy

which he termed

"omnispective."

n

this

paper

I

ignore

om-

nispectivetaxonomy

or he

simple

reason

that the number

of

pages

devoted to it in

Systematicoology,

oth

pro

and

con,

is so

small that

ncluding

t would not make

any

difference nd would complicatediagrams

that are

already

too

difficult

o

read.

As Table

4

indicates,papers arguingthe

virtues

and vices of

evolutionary system-

atics have remained

a

constant feature

of

the

journal.

The

low

figure

for

Eldredge

and

Nelson is

a

reflection fthe few

pages

devoted

to

taxonomic

philosophy

during

their

tenure. The low

figure

under

Smith

is not. When thesepapers are divided

into

those

that

defend

evolutionary systemat-

ics and those that attack it, a pattern

emerges,

but

it

does

not

coincide

with

any

putative philosophical preferences

of

the

Editors

(see Fig. 5). Instead,

it

exhibits a

lag

effectbetween attacks

and defenses.

The

first nti-evolutionist

nslaughtby the

pheneticists

ook

place

in

1961duringthe

tenure of

Hyman.

The

evolutionists re-

sponded

in 1962

and

then,

fter

ontinued

criticism,

aunched a

massive defense

in

1965

during Byers'

tenure as

Editor. t was

followed by another attack in 1967 met

immediatelyby

an

evolutionary

counter-

attack

in

1968,

both while

Johnston

was

Editor.



12/29

1983

ANALYSIS

OF SYSTEMATIC

ZOOLOGY 325

PageOs

Brooks

I

Hyman

'Byers 'Johnston 'Rowell

EldredgelSchuh

'Smith

70

1~~~II

laNelson

60

ProEvolutionary

I

I

I

I

I

I

Systematics

40

30

210

Ic

0

I0

20

5

Evolutionary

s

4 0

Systematics

50

6 0

52 54 56 58 60 62 64 66 68 70 72 74 76 78 80 82

FIG. 5.

The number

of

pages

each

year

arguing

for or

against evolutionary

ystematics.

The first int of the phenetics research

programto appear in the pages of System-

aticZoologywas a paper by Michener 1957:

166) in which he wondered "whether or

not it would be desirable to change from

the traditional approaches emphasizing

phylogeny to approaches utilizing only

static relationship." In that same year,

Michener

published

a

paper

with

Sokal

on

a quantitative approach to classification,

and Sneath published two papers urging

similar views

(Michener

and

Sokal, 1957;

Sneath, 1957a, b),

but

these

papers

did

not

appear

in

Systematic oology.

Most

of

the

early papers

in

Systematicoology dvocat-

ing phenetics (as well as quantitative

methods) were measured

in

their criti-

cisms of traditional evolutionary system-

atics and subdued

in

theirpolemics (e.g.,

Sneath, 1961; Sokal, 1961;

Rohlf nd

Sokal,

1962; Michener, 1963; Rohlf, 1963).

It

was

left to Ehrlich (1958, 1961, 1964) to goad

advocates of traditional taxonomic meth-

ods.

At this

time, Simpson (1961) pub-

lished his Principles f Animal Taxonomy

and, shortly hereafter, okal

and

Sneath

(1963) published their Principles fNumer-

ical Taxonomy.n response to these attacks,

Mayr (1965) published

his

major critique

of

phenetic taxonomy. Simpson (1964,

1965) published his responses to phenetics

elsewhere. Finally,

the

pheneticists oined

forcesto issue collective

responses (Sokal

and

Camin, 1965;

Sokal

et

al., 1965).

Strangely enough,

one of the earliest

critics of phenetics was Kiriakoff 1962,

1963), a disciple of Hennig who thought

of

himself

as

defending

a

single alterna-

tive taxonomic philosophy subscribed to

equally by Simpson, Mayr and Hennig.

However,

Sokal

and

Sneath

(1963)

even-

tually convinced

Kiriakoff

1965:63) that



13/29

326

SYSTEMATIC

ZOOLOGY

VOL.

32

Pages

80

Brooks

Hyman IByers

IJohnston I

Rowell

lEIdredgel

Schuh

ISmith

70

laI

I INelsoni

60

Pro

PheneticsI

I

40

II

30I

I

I

0~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

0

I

20II

30I

I

40II

I

50II

I

An/i

Phene/ics

I

II

60

IIII

70IIIII

52 54

56

58

60 62 64

66 68 70

72 74

76 78

80

82

FIG.

6. The number

of

pages

each

year

arguing

for

or

against phenetic

taxonomy.

phylogenetic

lassifications re

usually

not

possible

"owing

to

lack of

necessaryin-

formation" nd thatonly "ersatz" classi-

fications re

possible.

Comments

made by

Mayr 1965)

further orced

Kiriakoff

1966:

93) to

distinguish

etween

Hennig's

views

and

those of

Simpson and

Mayr,

realizing

that

"cladists are but

a rather

are subspe-

cies of

taxonomists."That

state of

affairs

was not to

last

for

ong.

Nelson

(1972)

went

on to

subdivide

the

evolutionists

further,

pointing

out

significant

ifferencesn

the

philosophies of

systematics set out

by

Simpson and Mayr.

As

Table 4

indicates,papers

concerning

phenetics

reached their

peak

under

John-

ston,began to

drop

under

Rowell

while

the journal

was still

at

Kansas,

dropped

even

lower

under

Eldredge and

Nelson,

and then began to climb again under

Schuh and

Smith. The

same

seesawing

patternfound

in

connection

with

evolu-

tionary

ystematics an

be seen in

the

data

for

phenetics

Fig.

6),

in

part

because

many

attacks

on

the

evolutionistswere

also de-

fenses of

phenetics,

and

vice

versa.

The

firstmajor

attacks on

phenetics came in

1965, a

series of

responses

appeared in

1967, more

attacks

in

1968,

defenses

in

1969,

attacks again

in

1970, and so

on.

Mayr's (1969) PrinciplesfSystematicool-

ogy lso

appeared

at this

time.The

rise

and

the fall of

papers

dealing with

phenetics

occurred while

Systematic

oologywas

at



14/29

1983

ANALYSIS

OF

SYSTEMATIC

ZOOLOGY

327

Kansas, theoriginal home of phenetic tax-

onomy. (Sokal and Rohlf moved to the

State Universityof New York at Stony

Brook n 1969.)

Phenetics

was hardly discussed while

Eldredge and Nelson were Editors, but

then

neitherwere any of the other taxo-

nomic philosophies. If the percentage of

pages devoted to taxonomicphilosophy

n

Systematic oology during

this

period

is

any indication,

axonomic

philosophy

had

fallen on

lean times. Sneath

and

Sokal

published their second edition

in

1973,

while the volume by Hecht et al.

did

not

appear

until

1977.

Were theoretical tax-

onomists

publishing extensively else-

where? Not that could discover.The phe-

neticists urned their ttention way from

taxonomic

philosophy

and toward devel-

oping

and

applying

a

variety

of

mathe-

matical techniques.The cladists forsome

reason published little on taxonomicphi-

losophyduringthisperiod.

The

major pa-

pers

on

taxonomicphilosophy

to

appear

at this time

were notpublished

in

System-

atic

ZoologyMayr, 1974; Sokal, 1974). Un-

der Schuh and Smith, things happilypicked up again-happily at least from he

perspective

of those of us who make a

professionof

arguing systematic hiloso-

phy.

The firstmentionof

Hennig

in the

pages

of

Systematic

oology

was a

translation

by

Steyskal 1953:41)

of

Hennig's (1950:4, 10)

contention that

the

goal

of

systematics

s

to

provide

a "universal reference

ystem"

for

biology.

With the

exception

of Kiria-

koff's apers,Crowson 1965) was thechief

early

defender of

Hennig's system.Mayr

(1965) objected

to

particular aspects

of

Hennig's

(1950, 1957) system

in his cri-

tique

of

phenetic

taxonomy. However,

it

was

Sokal

and

Camin

(1965)

who

pre-

sented the most sustained criticisms of

Hennig's system.

At

the

time,

Brundin's

(1966, 1968)

exposition

of

Hennig's prin-

ciples

received

little

attention.Even Hen-

nig's (1966)

Phylogeneticystematics

eemed

not to rouse much immediate response.

Cladistics

as a scientific

movement

n

the

United

States

really began

with the work

of

Kluge

and Farris

(1969)

and

Nelson

(1970).

However, the

issues were not

all

that

clear in the

early years. For

example,

Kluge

and Farris

1969:14)

can be found

saying that "it is quite

reasonable to

state,

'Mammals are derived from

reptiles,'

m-

plying merely that all mammals had a

commonancestor

thatwas a reptile,

quite

independently of the

factthat

Mammalia

and

Reptilia are both

'modern'

classes."

This

beliefwas to be

short-livedFarris et

al., 1970).

As

Table

4

indicates, apersdealing

with

cladistics

ncreasedsteadily

while System-

atic

Zoology

was at

Kansas, dropping

slightly

under

Eldredge and

Nelson, and

then

climbing

significantly

nder

Schuh

and Smith.The seesawing of attacks and

defenses s not

as apparent

withrespectto

the cladists as it

was

for

evolutionary

ys-

tematics and

phenetics (see

Fig. 7).

Al-

though Crowson's

(1970) Classification

nd

Biology ppeared justas the

controversy f

cladistics

was

getting

underway,

it

had

surprisingly

ittle

mpact.

A

second

surge

of

activity

ccurred n

1973,

but the

main

attacks

1977

and

1979)

as well

as

defenses

(1978-1982) occurred under the editor-ships ofSchuh and Smith.

One

surprisingfeature f

Figures 6 and

7 is that

both of the

emergingschools

of

taxonomy got

reasonably good starts

un-

der

Editors

that one

mightsuspect were

not

especially

"sympathetic" to

these

movements. It

is

certainly

true that

Hy-

man was far from

enthusiasticabout

pa-

pers

with

numbers

n

them,

s the

follow-

ing comment

n

her

1961 Editor's

report

indicates:

One article

was

rejected

because

[it was]

written

in

incredibly

bad

English

and

another

because

[it

was]

too mathematical.

nquiries

among

subscrib-

ers

indicate that the

journal

has

had

enough

for

the

present

of articles bout

numerical

taxonomy.

However,

further

pinions

on this

matter re de-

sired. An articleof

this nature s scheduled

for he

March, 1962,

ssue but

that will be the

last

of

this

nature

forthe

present Smithsonian

Archives].

However,

if

one looks at the

papers

that

Hyman published during her final three

years

as

Editor,

neither

quantitative

meth-

ods nor

phenetic

philosophy

s

absentfrom

the

pages

of

Systematicoology.

uring

this



15/29

328 SYSTEMATIC ZOOLOGY

VOL. 32

Pages

*0

|Brooks

I

Hyman

IByers JohnstonlRowell

Eldredgel

chuh Smith

160

1

r

I

jaNelson

i

140

III

120

F00

Pro

C/dis tics

80I

III

60III

I

70IIIII

20

120

L

Anti Cladistics

80I

100

__ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _1

I

52 54 56 58 60 62 64 66 68 70 72 74 76 78 80 82

FIG.

7. The number of

pages

each

year

arguing

for or

against

cladistic

taxonomy.

period,

six

papers

utilizing quantitative

techniquesappeared

for total

of 76 pages.

Three of these

papers,

however,were not

phenetic.

Instead

the authorsof

these pa-

pers

saw

no reason why quantitative

methods

could not be

used to study evo-

lution and to contributeto evolutionary

systematics.

As

James 1963) argued,

"nu-

merical

taxonomy"

concerns

methodol-

ogy,

not philosophy

of systematics.

Dur-

ing

this same period,

nine papers arguing

in

favor

of phenetics appeared

fora total

of

113

pages.

As

far

s

percentages

re con-

cerned,

these totals

re not

high (see

Table

4),

but

if

Hyman's

percentages

indicate

bias,

then

Rowell's

even

lower percentage

mustindicate even greaterbias. (Perhaps

I

can

be forgiven personal

aside

at this

point.

One

of the

papers

thatHyman

re-

jected,

withoutreview,

was submittedby

a philosophy

graduate

student

criticizing

Simpson's

definition

f

"monophyly."

Af-

ter Simpson's

intercession

the paper

was

published

[see

Hull, 1964].)

As Table

4 also

shows,

the average

per-

centage

of pages

arguing

the merits

f cla-

disticshardlychanged for he 10 yearsbe-

tween

1967

and 1977,

hovering

round

8%.

In

general,

Figure

7 does

not reveal

any

major

shift

fromJohnston's

asttwo

years,

through

Rowell's

tenure,

to Eldredge and

Nelson.

The

major

change

occurred

when

Schuh

became

Editor.During

the

editor-

ships of

Schuh

and Smith,

cladistics

be-

came one

of the

major

themes

n

Systematic

Zoology,

urpassing

phenetics

at its

height

under Johnston see Table 4). The move

from

Kansas

to the

American

Museum

did

signal

a change

in the philosophical

ori-

entation

of

the ournal's

Editors,

ut

itwas



16/29

1983

ANALYSIS

OF SYSTEMATIC

ZOOLOGY

329

Ratios

4.5

4.0

3,5

3.0

2.5

2.0

1.5

1.0

0.5

0

B J R E/N c

Sm

B

J R E/N c

Sm

B

J R

E/N

c Sm

EVOLUTIONARY

PHENETICS

CLADISTICS

SYSTEMATICS

FIG. 8. The

ratios of positive

to

negative

papers

foreach of the taxonomic

philosophies

under the

tenure

as

Editor

of

Byers

B), Johnston

J),

Rowell

(R),

Eldredge

and Nelson

(E/N),

Schuh

(Sc)

and

Smith

Sm).

not accompanied by an immediate hift n

the distributions

of

papers dealing

with

the various systematic hilosophies.

Short

of

having figures

or

rejection

ates

of papers supporting

or attacking partic-

ular taxonomic philosophies, the

relevant

figures

for

our purposes are the

ratios of

positive to negative pages published (see

Fig. 8). Because the issues werenot all that

clear in the early years,

I

have excluded

data for Brooks and Hyman, beginning

with

Byers' tenure

in

office.As Figure 8

shows,

more

papers supporting volution-

ary systematics

were

published

by

the

Kansas Editors than opposed. The ratios

were inverted after he journal moved

to

the American Museum. The one dramatic

feature

of

the tabulation

for

phenetics

is

the 1.7 ratio under Eldredge and Nelson.

However, the numbers of pages devoted

to

phenetics under Eldredge

and Nelson

were so

low that the ratio does

not

mean

much (19 pages

pro

to

11

pages con).

Oth-

erwise,

the

ratios forphenetics

were con-

sistently

below unity.

Aftera slow

start

under Byers,

the ratios

of positive

pages

to n`egative

for the

cladists were

consis-

tently

bove one. Once

again, the

dramat-

ic departure

under

Eldredge

and Nelson

is due

in partto small

numbers

95 pro to

23 con). The low ratiounder Byers s also

not

strictly omparable

to the others

be-

cause the controversy

ver

cladistics was

only

just getting

tarted.

Although

the

preceding

figures

do not

measure

directly

the matters

of greatest

concern, hey

do indicate that the

connec-

tions between

an

Editor'sputativebiases

and

the

representation

f

these

views

in

the

pages

of his or her journal

are not as

simple as one mightexpect.The ratiosfoi

evolutionary systematics

dropped

notice-

ably

when

the

ournal

moved

to

the

Amer-

ican

Museum,

but pheneticists

and cla-



17/29

330 SYSTEMATIC

ZOOLOGY VOL.

32

dists alike

are opposed to evolutionary

systematics.

n the average, the

ratios for

phenetics

were higher nder the

cladists

than they

had been

when the ournalwas

at Kansas

(0.7 to 0.85) When allowances

are made for Eldredge and Nelson's arti-

ficiallyhigh ratio,

the ratio forphenetics

under the cladists

is probably somewhat

lower. The ratios for

Byers, Rowell

and

Smith

are not

appreciably

different. he

ratios for

cladists were highest

under

Johnston,

ldredgeand

Nelson,and Smith;

they

dropped a bit

under Rowell and

Schuh. Although

Schuh was

predisposed

to the

principles

of

cladistic analysis

and

Rowell was not, the

ratios of

positive to

negative pages under the tenureof these

two

Editors

re

roughly

he same.

Similar-

ly, although Johnston

nd Smith hardly

held the same philosophical

preferences,

their ratios

forcladisticsturned

out to be

approximately

alike.

The

philosophical

preferences

of Editors may well make a

difference

o

a

journal, but other factors

are also

clearly

at

work. But one

thing

is

clear;

cladists have had

their

say

in the

pages

of

Systematic

oology.

The

average

cumulative ratiofor the last six Editors of

the ournal

for he threepredominant

phi-

losophies

of systematics

re evolutionary

systematics

1.03),

phenetics (0.78), and

cladistics

1.77).

Another

measure

of

the success

of a

par-

ticular

chool

of

systematics

s

the number

of

papers

that

appear

which

simply

take

these

principles

for

granted

and

apply

them

without

especiallyarguing

for

hem.

In Figure9,I have added "applied" papers

to theoretical

papers

for both

phenetics

and

cladistics.

I

have

also included

for

phenetics

all the

quantitative

papers

that

were

not

explicitly

ostile

to

phenetics.

For

cladistics,

have added

papers

arguing

in

favor

of vicariance

biogeography

as well

as those

applying

methods

of

cladistic

analysis.

In

each

case,

I

have

diagrammed

these

data so that the

various

categories

can be

distinguished.

The reader should

be warned,however,thatthesefigures re

the

most

mpressionistic

f

any

presented

in

this

paper.

Given

the data recorded

in

Figure 9,

phenetics

was atits height under

Johnston

and Rowell.

The drop in theoretical

pa-

pers that

occurredunder

Rowell was com-

pensated

for

by papers

in

applied phenet-

ics as well as papers

discussingquantitative

techniques. ncluded in the latter re most

papers

on

numerical

cladistics.Papers

on

applied phenetics

ll but

disappeared

from

the

pages

of

Systematicoology

n

the atter

part

of

Schuh's

tenure and

early

n

that

of

Smith. Applied

and

quantitative

papers

reappeared

during Smith's

finaltwo years.

Papers on applied cladistics

nd vicariance

biogeography

gradually

ncreased through

the years,

dropping

only

in

1981. When

papers

that

give

indirect

support

to the

pheneticists nd cladistsare included, the

representation f the

cladistic viewpoint

in

recent

years becomes even

more

marked.

EVOLUTION,

PHYLOGENY,

BIOGEOGRAPHY

AND NOMENCLATURE

Taxonomy has hardly

been the only

topic

of interest

n

Systematicoology.Just

as much

space

has been devoted

to dis-

cussing

evolutionary theory, phylogeny

reconstruction,iogeographyand nomen-

clature.

In this section

I

present

data

for

each

of these

subjects,

distinguishing

be-

tween

those

papers

thatwere

largely gen-

eral

discussions

of the relevant theoretical

and methodological

issues and those that

were

primarily pplications.

Needless

to

say,the

borderline between

"theoretical"

and

"applied"

in each

of

these

categories

is

far

from

harp.

In

each

case,

I

have also

presentedone example

of

the

sort of dis-

pute

thattook

place

under each of these

rubrics.

As I understand

t,evolutionarytheory

concerns

the evolutionary process-how

does evolution

occur?

A

theoretical

paper

mightaddress

such issues as

the effect f

gene

flow between

populations

on

the

ge-

netic differences

between

them. An

ap-

plied paper

might ctually ample

the

gene

flow betweenpopulations,possibly

to

test

a particularhypothesis bout the effects f

gene

flow. As

indicated

earlier,

the

first

major

ontroversy

o

break

out

in

the

pages

of

Systematic

oology

was the

greatsubspe-



18/29

1983

ANALYSIS

OF

SYSTEMATIC

ZOOLOGY

331

Pages

L5

i

Pro

Clodistics

I

I

125

App//edC/ad/stics

I

l

00

V

/car/nc

Biogeography

I

50

25

0

r-

----1

'-

25I

Byers

Johnston

Rowell Eldredge

a

Schuh

Smith

Pages

Nelson

50

L_

25

0

2 5

5

0

70

100II

125II

150

I

.,,

ro

Phenetics

I

175

III

App//ed

henetf/cs

200

I

uant/tative

Methods

225

I

64 65 66

67 68 69 70

71 72 73 74

75 76 77

78 79 80 8 1

82

FIG.

9. Three categories

of

papers

are

presented

forcladistics

nd

phenetics:

the number of

pages

arguing

in favor of cladistics white above the abscissa), applying cladisticmethods shaded), and arguingforvicar-

iance

biogeography white

below

the

abscissa);

and

the number

of

pages arguing

for

phenetics

white

above

the

abscissa), applying

phenetic

methods

(shaded),

and

discussing quantitative

methods

(white

below

the

abscissa).

cies

debate.

It

began with

a

paper

by

Wil-

son

and

Brown

(1953)

condemning

the

subspecies

concept.

Although

admitting

some

problemsexisted

with respect

o

dis-

cerning species, especially in establishinglower limits and estimating he conspeci-

ficity of

allopatric populations,

they

nevertheless

oncluded

thatMayr'sspecies

concept

s

theoretically ell-grounded

nd

sufficientlyperational

to deservethe

cen-

tral role

it

plays

in both taxonomic

philos-

ophyand

evolutionary

heory.

Wilsonand

Brown (1953:100)

came

to very different

conclusions about

the subspecies

concept

and

its

nomenclatural

correlate,

the tri-

nomen. "From our experience in the lit-

eraturewe

are convinced

that the subspe-

cies concept

is the

mos

thirty-one years of systematic zoology-by david l. hull. systematic zoology, vol. 32, no. 4 (dec.,...

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