“…In Croizat’s time there was a strong emphasis on ignoring his research programme, and there are practitioners of biogeography and evolution who continue this tradition into the present. Others, such as George Gaylord Simpson also engaged in ridicule (Nelson, 1977), and advocacy for panbiogeography in New Zealand during the 1980s was met with an intense level of condemnation from institutional science (Grehan, 1985).…”
ABSTRACT1 Misconceptions arising from efforts to translate panbiogeography into terms used in other biogeographic and evolutionary theories are discussed with respect to Cox's (1998, Journal of Biogeography, 25, 813±828) critique of panbiogeography. Croizat's rejection of`Darwinian dispersal' applies only to efforts to utilize this concept as a general explanation for biogeographic patterns. The conceptual difference between distribution and panbiogeographic dispersal maps is illustrated to show that Croizat did not synonymize distribution and dispersal. Croizat's position on continental drift and plate tectonics does not support Cox's (1998) claim that Croizat`for a long time' refused to accept the theory of plate tectonics. The methodological relationship between panbiogeographic analysis and geology suggests an independence of methodology that prevents geological theory from falsifying panbiogeographic predictions. Panbiogeographic predictions for the eastern Paci®c are shown to be in agreement with current historical geological models. Claims by Cox (1998) that the panbiogeographic method is variable and questionable are evaluated with respect to the biogeographic homology of primitive frogs, ratite birds, and southern beeches to demonstrate the consistent application of minimal distance, main massing, phylogenetic af®nity and baseline criteria. Panbiogeographic classi®cation concepts are contrasted with the Darwinian system (supported by Cox) utilizing a concept of unitary geographical area based on the language of Roman military rule. Inconsistent positions expressed in recent critiques of panbiogeography may indicate an underlying and implicit acceptance of the empirical and theoretical progress generated by panbiogeography within modern biogeography.The formation of groups has an invigorating effect in all spheres of human striving, perhaps mostly due to the struggle between the convictions and aims represented by the different groups' (Einstein, 1938. Collier's, 26 November).
“…In Croizat’s time there was a strong emphasis on ignoring his research programme, and there are practitioners of biogeography and evolution who continue this tradition into the present. Others, such as George Gaylord Simpson also engaged in ridicule (Nelson, 1977), and advocacy for panbiogeography in New Zealand during the 1980s was met with an intense level of condemnation from institutional science (Grehan, 1985).…”
ABSTRACT1 Misconceptions arising from efforts to translate panbiogeography into terms used in other biogeographic and evolutionary theories are discussed with respect to Cox's (1998, Journal of Biogeography, 25, 813±828) critique of panbiogeography. Croizat's rejection of`Darwinian dispersal' applies only to efforts to utilize this concept as a general explanation for biogeographic patterns. The conceptual difference between distribution and panbiogeographic dispersal maps is illustrated to show that Croizat did not synonymize distribution and dispersal. Croizat's position on continental drift and plate tectonics does not support Cox's (1998) claim that Croizat`for a long time' refused to accept the theory of plate tectonics. The methodological relationship between panbiogeographic analysis and geology suggests an independence of methodology that prevents geological theory from falsifying panbiogeographic predictions. Panbiogeographic predictions for the eastern Paci®c are shown to be in agreement with current historical geological models. Claims by Cox (1998) that the panbiogeographic method is variable and questionable are evaluated with respect to the biogeographic homology of primitive frogs, ratite birds, and southern beeches to demonstrate the consistent application of minimal distance, main massing, phylogenetic af®nity and baseline criteria. Panbiogeographic classi®cation concepts are contrasted with the Darwinian system (supported by Cox) utilizing a concept of unitary geographical area based on the language of Roman military rule. Inconsistent positions expressed in recent critiques of panbiogeography may indicate an underlying and implicit acceptance of the empirical and theoretical progress generated by panbiogeography within modern biogeography.The formation of groups has an invigorating effect in all spheres of human striving, perhaps mostly due to the struggle between the convictions and aims represented by the different groups' (Einstein, 1938. Collier's, 26 November).
“…Croizat's panbiogeography was not generally accepted in the decades after its proposal, and most English‐speaking biogeographers did not take it seriously (Llorente‐Bousquets et al ., ; Heads, ). Simpson privately wrote to Gareth Nelson: ‘Study of Croizat's voluminous work has convinced me that he is a member of the lunatic fringe’ (Nelson, , p. 451). Ernst Mayr added: ‘Neither Simpson nor anyone else has affected my treatment of Croizat, but only his totally unscientific style and methodology.…”
Section: Panbiogeographymentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Time is too short to argue with such authors and one cannot simply refer to Croizat without detailed analysis. I am prepared to be criticized for this, but any scientist has to make the decision where to draw the line’ (Nelson, , p. 452). Some authors, however, provided positive comments on Croizat's contributions (Corner, ; Good, ; Brundin, ; Löve, ).…”
Aim Panbiogeography, as originally formulated by L eon Croizat, assumed that vicariance and range expansion are the only biogeographical processes needed to explain general biotic distributions. This was in opposition to the prevailing paradigm at the time, known as dispersalism, which postulates that organisms evolve in 'centres of origin' from pre-existing species and then randomly cross barriers to occupy new areas, where they adapt and evolve into new species. The panbiogeographic approach is implemented through track analysis, which consists of three basic steps: constructing individual tracks for two or more different taxa, obtaining generalized tracks where two or more different individual tracks coincide, and identifying nodes in the areas where two or more generalized tracks intersect. In this synthesis I discuss some criticisms that have been directed at panbiogeography and track analysis.Location Global.Methods I evaluated the papers with track analyses that have been published in the last few decades and the critiques provided by several authors.Results Most of the critiques have been directed at the original panbiogeographic approach, with its complete or almost complete reliance on vicariance explanations. Track analyses published in the 1980s and 1990s usually applied a strict vicariance explanation; however, most of the analyses published in the last 10 years or so consider both vicariance and dispersal to explain the observed patterns.Main conclusions Although Croizat's metaphor 'Earth and life evolve together' may be a useful guide to understanding broad, general patterns, the relationships between Earth history and life are more complex because biotic history is reticulate. To reduce our explanations exclusively to vicariance or dispersal is misguided. We should integrate both processes into a dispersalvicariance model that allows us to understand the evolution of biotic distributions, incorporating the dating of the lineages and the identification of the cenocrons (sets of taxa that share the same biogeographical history) that coexist within biotas. In the framework of this model, panbiogeographic track analysis is a useful method for identifying biotas, and may constitute the first step of an evolutionary biogeographical analysis.
“…If anything, ‘pattern cladistics’ grew from a combination of efforts: the reform of palaeontology, the generalization of Hennig's Phylogenetic Systematics, a critique of ‘evolutionary systematists’ (Patterson, 1982b, p. 304, ‘Answering such critics as Mayr was one of the stimuli behind more recent developments in cladistics, leading to what has been called ‘transformed cladistics’ [=pattern cladistics]’; see also Patterson, 1994, p. 174 and Patterson, 2002) and the integration of systematics and biogeography in a meaningful context. If anything, ‘pattern cladists’ attempted to grasp some of the generalities behind systematics, generalities that had to some extent always been present in comparative biology – the quest for a natural classification, a general understanding of ‘relationship’, and the investigation of the ‘spatial differentiation in its temporal context…the most elusive factor in the history of systematics, one rivalling if not exceeding Darwin's ‘‘mystery of mysteries’’– the origin of species’ (Nelson, 1977, p. 450).…”
Section: ‘No Good Deed Goes Unpunished’–impunitum Numquam Beneficium mentioning
confidence: 99%
“…‘I am inclined to the view that an adequate concept of space, that is spatial differentiation in its temporal context, has been the most elusive factor in the history of systematics, one rivalling if not exceeding Darwin's ‘mystery of mysteries’– the origin of species’ (Nelson, 1977, p. 450)…”
Aim To document the historical development of cladistics and the roles palaeontology and biogeography played in establishing coherent concepts of phylogenetic relationships focusing on some aspects of the contributions of Gareth Nelson.
Conclusions Nelson's reformulation of the threefold parallelism provides a rationale for investigating phylogeny, replacing the central role palaeontology once played with biogeography, adding a spatial dimension to the concept of phylogeny. This approach to phylogeny replaces the old ‘transformationist’ view with the cladistic view, the latter dependent on discovering relationships among taxa. Numerical phylogenetic methods are inherently ‘transformationist’ and have replaced stratigraphy as the key to phylogenetic relationships. Numerical methods in systematics and biogeography are inherently transformational and suffer the same problems as the old palaeontology.
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