Re: Phylogeny and Distance

[Dinogeorge@aol.com]

In a message dated 1/10/01 3:05:51 AM EST, kinman@hotmail.com writes:

<< ****What is not being recognized here is that "relationship" is not the 
 same thing as "relatedness", and therefore neither are the degrees of 
 relationship and relatedness.   Siblings may share a common relationship, 
 but the number of genes they share in common can vary from 100% (in 
 identitical twins) to extremely low percentages in rare instances (the 
 disparity in relatedness can be enormous even among the closest of 
 relatives). >>

You are stretching the analogy of a phyletic tree as a family tree too far. 
Phyletic trees are not based on morphological distance, only on branch 
topology. There is no analogue to "relatedness" as you describe in a phyletic 
tree.