Matt just sent me an email entitled Are there “basal” sauropodomorphs? , in which he pointed me to Mario Bronzati’s (2017) opinion piece in Palaeontologia Electronica , “Should the terms ‘basal taxon’ and ‘transitional taxon’ be extinguished from cladistic studies with extinct organisms?” Here’s the reply I sent Matt, which at his suggestion I am posting here essentially unedited.