Re: *Gansus*

[David Marjanovic <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Harris, Jerald" <jharris@dixie.edu>
Sent: Monday, March 12, 2007 6:03 PM

>    We simply used Clarke & Norell's matrix, with a few changes and 
> additions -- we didn't try to change or add codings from anything we 
> hadn't personally seen (well, Luis & Jingmai probably saw, and they did 
> contribute to our changes for a few things), including _Enaliornis_.  This 
> wasn't because we were/are lazy -- we are trying hard to get the funding 
> we'll need to go see as many of these things in person as humanly 
> possible -- but because our analysis was preliminary.

That's clear. That's why I asked -- instead of assuming an answer. :^)

> Rest assured also that a brand-new data matrix is being compiled, based in 
> part on Clarke & Norell and others but with lots of new/changed characters 
> and more accurate codings.

Looking forward to it!

> Still, it does beggar the question of exactly how much faith one can put 
> in a computer-generated analysis when the human mind says something 
> else...are we Borg or are we capable of abstracting beyond a bunch of 
> statistics?

Well... subjective assessments of which characters are "important" have so 
often been shown to be wrong by now that I don't think we can abstract 
beyond the statistics, despite all the well-meaning talk that a cladistic 
analysis should be the starting point rather than the end of a phylogenetic 
study. On the other hand, of course, subjective judgments are inevitable at 
the other end of the analysis -- how to code a character.

And such judgments are again dependent on the data. Think of the sternal 
characters in Mickey's analysis that I bemoaned yesterday (and every few 
years again). I think that what is actually phylogenetically informative 
about them is the point in the ontogeny at which the bone or process in 
question ossifies or fuses. To figure that point out we'd need growth series 
that we simply don't have -- apparently not even for *Confuciusornis* 
(though someone should have a look at a couple hundred specimens and...).