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With science-based technology playing an increasingly dominant role in the world economy, the politicisation of next week's conference has been inevitable. The major task is to make it constructive.
The critical view of the cladistic method of classification taken by L.B. Halstead in his report of a meeting on Vertebrate Palaeontology published in News and Views some months ago (216, 759; 1978) and the rejoinder by a group of supporters of ‘cladism’ (277, 175; 1979) provoked a large correspondence, a selection of which is published below.
