Re: Kerberosaurus manakini

[Mike Taylor <mike@indexdata.com>]

> Date: Tue, 22 Jun 2004 11:12:16 -0400
> From: Mike Milbocker <mmilbocker@psdllc.com>
> 
> The goal [of a cladistic analysis] is to order data based on a
> principle of parsimony. The hypothesis is that the principle of
> parsimony results in an association of traits that accurately
> reproduces what happened in evolution.

"The point of parsimony is not to assume minimisation of homoplasy,
but to minimise the assumption of homoplasy".  I am (mis)quoting
someone, perhaps Paul Sereno.

> After all, I would be willing to wager that crude forms of
> cladistics were operational in many "old-fashioned" analyses before
> computers refined and popularized the approach.

I am sure you're right; but it does seem that lot of old diagnoses
rely extensively on plesiomorphic characters (i.e. taxon A and taxon B
are considered related because they both _lack_ a particular derived
character).

 _/|_    _______________________________________________________________
/o ) \/  Mike Taylor  <mike@indexdata.com>  http://www.miketaylor.org.uk
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