Brower (in press) recently documented in some detail that ‘‘phenetic’’ originally (and universally) referred to a method, grouping according to overall similarity (similarity in all states, plesiomorphic as well as apomorphic). That should have surprised no one, but it still led to controversy because it undermined Williams and Ebachs (2006, p. 414) idea that ‘‘phenetic’’ should instead designate ordinary data ‘‘even when the entries in a matrix are said to be shared derived characters’’, the only ‘‘Cladistic’’ data then being three-taxon statements (3ts). In their reply to Brower, Williams and Ebach (in press; hereinafter ‘‘W&E’’) are still bent on ?nding some way to call everything but three-taxon analysis (3ta) ‘‘phenetic’’.
展开▼
