Wood and co-workers (Robinson and Cavanaugh, 1998; Wood 2002, 2005a) have devised and promoted the application of some statistical methods to the taxonomy of various biological organisms. Principally, they rely on a technique described as Baraminic Distance Correlation (BDC) or a version of multi-dimensional scaling (BDISTMDS). This paper will argue that these methods are based on a shaky understanding of statistical principles, and that their use ought to be abandoned.