Re: Many many things

[Mickey Rowe <rowe@psych.ucsb.edu>]

Technical problems prevented this from going straight to the list, but
we refuse to be ruled by computers.  Therefore on Chris' behalf I
forward:

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Date: Tue, 04 Jan 2000 12:35:44 -0600
From: chris brochu <cbrochu@fmnh.org>
Organization: field museum

Grant Harding wrote:

> It has always struck me that cladistic analyses, like those using
> PAUP, were somewhat biased.

How so?


> I could be wrong, but it just seems to me that someone doing one of
> these analyses, though attempting to be neutral, would end up
> selecting characters that favoured his or her particular view.

This is always a danger, but all scientific endeavors suffer from this
potential.  The only way to avoid it is to prohibit human beings from
commiting acts of science.  

In principle, peer review should minimize matrix bias.  There has been
debate about this on this list in the past, so I won't say much more
about it, except to point out that in my experience, peer review works. 
It may not be flawless, but I can't think of a better means of quality
control within the profession.

> What would be nice would be if we could directly scan the fossils,
> using 3D imaging technology, and get the computer to analyze what
> the fossils actually look like and then formulate its own characters
> and cladogram. How reasonable (or necessary) is this?

There are image analytic procedures that consider fossil form based on
scanned images, but these usually address issues of overall form.  It
would be unreasonable to ask a computer to atomize these into discrete
characters, given that reference points may not be recognizable from one
specimen to the next because of distortion.  

And this cannot completely eliminate potential human bias, as the human
has to select the ingroup and outgroup taxa to be studied.

-- 
----------------------
Christopher A. Brochu
Department of Geology
Field Museum of Natural History
Roosevelt Road at Lake Shore Drive
Chicago, IL 60605

voice: 312-665-7633  (NEW)
fax: 312-665-7641 (NEW)
electronic:  cbrochu@fmppr.fmnh.org
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