Three Four Five Six Traits Cladograms are a useful way of organizing, in a visual way, the relationships between creatures that share and do not share derived characters. In practice, when cladograms are constructed, many hundreds of characters may have to be considered, and computers are needed to sort out the best fit between the branches and who should be on them. Cladograms emphasize the sequence or order in which derived characters arise from a central phylogenetic tree. That is their main strength. However, nothing in a cladogram indicates how strong or profound the derived character is, and its evolutionary importance.
Equal weight is given to all the characters used.
This can sometimes lead to unusual groupings which may be technically correct, but questionable. Evolutionary Systematics uses a taxonomic principle that is also based on the splitting of phyletic lineages, and constructs family trees, but in contrast the pure cladistic method, a weighting system is used that favors some derived characters over others. However, and it is a big 'however', evolutionary systematists do find it necessary to use a lot of subjective judgment when deciding which factors to weight the most heavily. Whenever humans substitute their own 'feelings' over provable biological fact, the results will always have to be viewed with care and constant revision. Even with this caution, however, evolutionary systematics appears, at the moment to, give a picture of biological relationships between species that is based on the soundest taxonomic principles.