Re: Gaia theropod follow-up: a "new" phylogeny

["philidor11" <philidor11@snet.net>]

<What bothers me about this situation is that cladistic analysis seems to be
turning some paleontologists into obsessive-compulsive character-finders who
set aside their own good judgment in favor of a few
data-crunching algorithms of questionable validity.>

'[Q]uestionable validity' does not necessarily mean illogical, only
arbitrary.  That is, I can make certain characters determinant and be
consistent and logical, but not necessarily correct.
Even with data limitations, shouldn't an analysis be able to state that, 'If
this analysis is correct, then no animal with the following characters...
may have the following characters... because...'.  This would be a direct
way of making the hypothesis falsifiable, no?


>From Street Fighter (1994):
"Dr Dhalsim! How is your research today?"
"The same. Warped. Corrupted. My science twisted to serve perversion
instead of peace."
"Tell you what: after I've crushed my enemies, we'll see about getting you
published."
Raul Julia and Roshan Seth
('And you call yourself a scientist' site)