Discussion of Molecular Classification
There has been some challenge to the recent molecular studies, claiming that these provide a skewed view of the phylogenetic order because the studies don't take into account fossil representatives. However, the molecular studies have clarified relations among families that were thought to be non-monophyletic before the advent of molecular information, which were left in their non-monophyletic ranks because there was not enough information to do otherwise. The reclassification of ferns using multiple molecular studies, which have generally supported each other, is not any different from classifications of the past—it is the definition of the relations utilizing all the information available. It does not discourage the further study and clarification of the groups, and does not mean that if further study proves the classification wrong, it will not be changed.
Read more about this topic: Leptosporangiate Fern
Famous quotes containing the words discussion of and/or discussion:
“What chiefly distinguishes the daily press of the United States from the press of all other countries is not its lack of truthfulness or even its lack of dignity and honor, for these deficiencies are common to the newspapers everywhere, but its incurable fear of ideas, its constant effort to evade the discussion of fundamentals by translating all issues into a few elemental fears, its incessant reduction of all reflection to mere emotion. It is, in the true sense, never well-informed.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“The whole land seems aroused to discussion on the province of woman, and I am glad of it. We are willing to bear the brunt of the storm, if we can only be the means of making a break in that wall of public opinion which lies right in the way of woman’s rights, true dignity, honor and usefulness.”
—Angelina Grimké (1805–1879)