stratocladistics

[chris brochu <cbrochu@fmppr.fmnh.org>]

Gang,

        Not long ago, someone asked about the recent Fox et al. paper in
Science that, on the surface, seemed to indicate the superiority of
stratocladistics over more conventional cladistics.  Y'all might be
interested in a comment Science recently put on its web site:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/285/5431/1179a


This consists of a comment and reply.  I agree with some aspects of the
comment, but not all of them; likewise with Fox et al.'s reply.

One thing the comment does not address is the unsuitability of
stratocladistics when biogeographic sampling is nonuniform.  If anyone
can tell me of a terrestrial vertebrate lineage with uniform, unbiased
biogeographic sampling, I will happily delve into stratocladistics.  


chris



-- 
----------------------
Christopher A. Brochu
Department of Geology
Field Museum of Natural History
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Chicago, IL 60605

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