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From: rising@utzoo.UUCP (Jim Rising)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Phenetics & Cladistics 
Message-ID: <8892@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 6-Nov-87 10:33:46 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.8892
Posted: Fri Nov  6 10:33:46 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 6-Nov-87 10:33:46 EST
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 20

I agree that there isn't much in a name.  Cain & Harrison (1960) defined
phenetic as "...arrangement by overall similarity, based on all available
characters without any weighting."  Sneath & Sokal (1973) modify this to
"...phenetic relationship...[is] similarity (resemblance) based on a set
of phenotypic characteristics of the objects or organisms under study."

Joel Craycraft likes to call Sibley & Ahlquist's DNA-DNA hybridization
work "phenetic" to (I think) needle Sibley (it's Craycraft's idea of the
ultimate insult, and taken by Sibley as such).  I confess, based on the
definitions given above I would not object to calling Sibley's work
"phenetic," but without implied criticism.  I suspect that cladists often
throw out much useful information in what is often a quixotic search for
phylogeny.

--Jim Rising
-- 
Name:   Jim Rising
Mail:   Dept. Zoology, Univ. Toronto
        Toronto, Ontario, Canada    M5S 1A1
UUCP:   {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!rising