Peter H. A. Sneath (1923 - 2011)

I was trained early on in cladistics, but Numerical Taxonomy was then and now considered a classic, and much of the work is still useful. It is sad to hear that Sneath has passed on. Thanks for the post.

My anthropology dissertation in 1976 referenced Sneath and Sokal, and Hardine and Sibson. Psychologists and linguists had been using clustering and multi-dimensional scaling methods for some time, (such as Johnson's hierarchical clustering but the fortan routines in S&S ran much faster.

Sorry he has died.

Great story about the soil samples. Returning to the US in the early '70s with bags, and vials filled with white, red, or brown powders (in fact mostly clays) was always good for an extra hour with customs agents. I found that if I gave them a copy of my field catalog, and a request form for samples they let me go.

Gary_Hurd said: My anthropology dissertation in 1976 referenced Sneath and Sokal, and [J]ardine and Sibson. Psychologists and linguists had been using clustering and multi-dimensional scaling methods for some time, (such as Johnson's hierarchical clustering but the fortan routines in S&S ran much faster.

Joe Felsenstein said: One funny occasion was when a meeting in London was to have its banquet at a famous (or perhaps infamous) restaurant,Simpson's of the Strand. They had a dress code that required me to wear a suit jacket, and I had not brought any. Peter and Joan Sneath heard me worrying, and came up with a spare jacket of Peter's. He was a tall English beanpole, and I wasn't, and the jacket was just the right style for England of the 1950's, so about 25 years out of date. I felt like an idiot wearing it to the restaurant, but the attendant took it off me and checked it without comment. I don't suppose I will ever wear that style again -- one sees it only in movies. I sat near Peter and Joan at the banquet. It was kind of them both to have lent the jacket, and even kinder of them not to have laughed at the way I looked wearing it.

Cripes, this is just getting weird.

Dave Luckett said: Cripes, this is just getting weird.

Atheistoclast said:

Dave Luckett said: Cripes, this is just getting weird.

It tends to get weird in England where the "public schools" are really elitist private schools whose graduates become often members of secret societies. Most scientific institutions in England have a masonic connection and this explains their anti-theistic bias. Someone like Joe Felsenstein rose to prominence through his own merit, whereas in England the "old boy network" ensures that only certain people can ever rise to distinction. The country is still a very hierarchical and feudal society.

Atheistoclast said: There is a reason why high society people get dressed up and it isn't just about decorum.

Campaigning to have him removed!

That goes alongside the "my mission is to destroy atheism" in the goober file. This guy is Dagenham - he's out beyond Barking.

Atheistoclast said: Someone like Joe Felsenstein rose to prominence through his own merit, whereas in England the "old boy network" ensures that only certain people can ever rise to distinction. The country is still a very hierarchical and feudal society. You have to also realize that Darwin is championed by the British Establishment only because he represents the "Empire" at is peak rather than because he was anything like as great a scientist as Newton. As such, it is Charlie and not Isaac who appears on the back of the £10 note. I am campaigning for him to be removed.

Sorry for the delay in acting, folks, I was away from my computer.

In response to one question about Sneath: he retired at the normal age in 1989, as was explained in the 2010 article which I linked to in the post. As to whether people (like me, for example) are continuing to work past retirement age because we are terrified of yielding our post to younger folks who would agree with the Discovery Institute ... please discuss that on the Wall. If at all.

I realize that people here did not know Peter Sneath, and are not that involved in, or aware of, the work on phylogenies and systematics. So I don't expect this memorial thread to go far, but I will patrol (or should I say "patroll") it against rampant diversionary nonsense.

Joe -

I had read some of Sneath's papers in graduate school and did peruse Sokal and Sneath once. Am surprised that virtually no one working in systematics - with maybe one or two exceptions - has posted their condolences here (In the interest of full disclosure, I had studied systematics from cladists. But I think I did have a biostatistician professor who had praised Sneath's work.). You have my condolences on the loss of your old friend and colleague.

Sincerely,

John

John said: Joe - I had read some of Sneath's papers in graduate school and did peruse Sokal and Sneath once. Am surprised that virtually no one working in systematics - with maybe one or two exceptions - has posted their condolences here (In the interest of full disclosure, I had studied systematics from cladists. But I think I did have a biostatistician professor who had praised Sneath's work.).

You have my condolences on the loss of your old friend and colleague.

And
here is an appreciation of the impact of Peter Sneath's work by University of Connecticut evolutionary biologist Kent Holsinger.

... and here is a brief notice by his University of his death, mentioning some circumstances.

... and searching more carefully gives dozens of sites that mention his death. Unfortunately with the exception of the ones mentioned above, all of them start out "Word has reached me ..."! Most are anticreationist or science-promoting sites just putting in a link to PT.

As for the rest, Grrr ...

Here's one that's different, and not in response to Peter's death. A book review of the book Naming Nature: The Clash Between Instinct and Science (2009) by Carol Kaesuk Yoon, in which she is quoted and paraphrased as saying that Sokal and Sneath's method of numerical taxonomy carried us away from a real appreciation of nature. An implicitly negative assessment.

Yoon's book is a popularized account of developments in taxonomy and systematics (including molecular systematics), not heavy on details. Using Google Books I found that Sokal and Sneath's work is mentioned on
a series of pages from page 195-227, and Google Books will let you see the text for most of these mentions.

Bob Sokal, Peter's co-thinker, has contacted me. He thanked me for this obituary post. He also corrected me about the invention of UPGMA clustering. He says that he invented it about 1953. Peter Sneath invented single-linkage clustering (probably the next most-widely-used method). However, I think UPGMA was not actually published until Rohlf's thesis of 1962 and a paper by Peter Sneath in that same year.

Here is an appreciation of Peter by Mike Stevens, a microbiologist who once worked for Peter and who knew him for many years.

Michael Goodfellow, of the University of Newcastle, has published
a good and appreciative obituary at the web site of the Society of General Microbiology.

At the plant systematics journal Taxon is this very good appreciation of Peter's influence by Daniel Barker, who acknowledges that he never met Peter. It can be accessed freely (sometimes).

Daniel Barker sends along the following correction of his article:

Thank you again for your link to my tribute to Peter Sneath from Panda's
Thumb (in your comment of 16 April).

Readers of the journal kindly pointed out that a caption incorrectly
identified Rogers McVaugh as 'M.C. Vaughn'. I mention this in case you
might wish to also add a link to the erratum, which is freely available:

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/iapt/tax/2012/00000061/00000003/art00
029

I am keen to spread the correction around, to a reasonable extent,
particularly since the mis-labelling also appears elsewhere:

(Sneath 2010,
Bulletin of BISMiS 1: 77-83, http://www.bergeys.org/bismisbulletinissuesv1.html ).

The University of Leicester has published a more extensive obituary of Peter Sneath, written by Dorothy Jones and Bill Grant. It emphasizes both Peter's work on numerical taxonomy and his work on bacterial classification.