Re: The validity of cladograms (was Re: giant birds)

[Dinogeorge@aol.com]

In a message dated 11/14/99 2:38:10 PM EST, cbrochu@fmppr.fmnh.org writes:

<< Are they "different" 90 % of the time?  Tom "Captain Clade" Holtz
 presented a good poster at SVP this year showing that, statistically,
 the "different" theropod trees out there aren't so "different" after all
 - certain select groups are bouncing around in different analyses, but
 the general pattern is stable and uniform. >>

I wonder how much of the stability arises from everybody using everybody 
else's character matrices, rather than from a genuine phyletic signal. Might 
be interesting to see what happens if one uses only skull characters in one 
analysis versus only postcranial characters in another analysis.