Ken Kinman wrote:
> As I stated back in February, I no longer have much confidence that
either "enigmosauria" or "Alvarezsauria" (incl. mononykiforms) is
paraphyletic (much less holophyletic). I would give it a 30% chance that
one is paraphyletic and the other polyphyletic, and a 50% chance that
*both* of them are polyphyletic. I will still give it a 19% chance that
both are paraphyletic, but only a 1% chance that both are holophyletic.
And there's a 100% chance that the above paragraph is absolutely
meaningless.
If you were to do a vox-pop poll of paleontologists, I'm sure the majority
would agree that Alvarezsauridae might one day be shown *not* be a natural
grouping (i.e. monophyletic or 'holophyletic' in your usage). But you see,
the *current* evidence (which, when you think about it, is all we have to
base analyses on) currently points to a monophyletic group comprising
_Alvarezsaurus_, _Patagonykus_ and Mononykinae.
Perhaps future discoveries will undermine this interpretation - who knows?
I know Ken likes to cast himself as the "Cassandra of Phylogeny" - fated to
be correct, but never believed until after a prediction comes true.
However, to say that a clade *might* be split up as the result of future
discoveries is nothing more than platitude. Every study allows for this
possibility; but pulling new phylogenies out of thin air has no more
credibility than talking to serpents or the reading of entrails.