Re: synapomorphies not created equal

[Graydon <graydon@dsl.ca>]

On Sat, Sep 01, 2001 at 06:22:10PM -0500, Tim Williams scripsit:
> Ken Kinman wrote:
> >      I've been thinking very hard about this, and I am still not
> >      convinced
> >that all synapomorphies are created equal.  Some are "stronger" than
> >others no matter how long or big the evolutionary gap happens to be
> >in which it falls.
> 
> This is a slippery slope - and I'm quite frightened of what might lie
> at the bottom of it.
> 
> I can foresee such an approach leading to a situation in which
> characters are assessed as "strong" or "weak" according to how they
> fit a given evolutionary scenario.

I think character weight being problematic is a side effect of not
having sufficently powerful computers available to the typical
paleontological researcher yet; there isn't anything fundamental that
says a statistical assessment of tree stability couldn't be done to
produce confidences in at least the *relative* weight of the characters.
It would just suck up orders of magnitude more computing power than the
weightless versions, so it isn't on the desktop yet.

-- 
                           graydon@dsl.ca
               To maintain the end is to uphold the means.