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# Reply to Bauer et al. (2022)

Christopher R.C. Paul

*Acta Palaeontologica Polonica* 67 (2), 2022: 469-473 doi:https://doi.org/10.4202/app.00995.2022

Cladistic analyses will be inaccurate if based on inaccurate data. Most blastozoan taxa were defined before cladistics was proposed. Redescription of precladistic taxa should be a priority. Cladistics recognizes similarities between taxa, not differences. Differences always exist, so the two approaches are asymmetrical. Any suggested similarity or homology needs testing, including output of computer-based analyses. New interpretations of plate homology between glyptocystitoid and hemicosmitoid rhombiferans had already rendered input data obsolete before the pan-dichoporite paper was published. Universal Elemental Homology (UEH) is not a scientific hypothesis. It makes no testable predictions; no system of naming plates can.

Christopher R.C. Paul [glcrcp@bristol.ac.uk], School of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Wills Memorial Building, Bristol BS8 1RL, UK.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (for details please see [creativecommons.org](https://creativecommons.org), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

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