Evolutionary Classification Using Convex Phenetics

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Abstract
The evolutionary school of biological classification, which considers both dissimilarity and evolutionary branching pattern when classifying species into higher taxa, has been criticized by: cladists for the vagueness with which it makes evolutionary considerations; pheneticists for trying to use something so poorly known as evolutionary branching pattern; and both for its lack of operational methods. In the past 20 years, both the volume of data and the quality of operational methods have increased, so that more credible estimates of evolutionary branching pattern are being constructed. Progress has also been made in understanding the properties, strengths, and weaknesses of both cladistic and phenetic classifications. This work describes and illustrates an operational criterion for using an estimate of evolutionary branching pattern to constrain phenetic clusters to reflect both dissimilarity and branching pattern. The resulting evolutionary classifications are operationally defined, reflect both evolution and similarity, are less cumbersome than cladistic classifications, and permit a more stable system of formal higher taxa while debate and revision of ideas concerning ancestors and evolutionary directionality continue.

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