Augury and Alvarezsauria (was RE: New Ref)

["Williams, Tim" <TiJaWi@agron.iastate.edu>]

Ken Kinman wrote:

> As I stated back in February, I no longer have much confidence
> that either "enigmosauria" or "Alvarezsauria" (incl. mononykiforms) is 
> paraphyletic (much less holophyletic).  I would give it a 30% chance
> that one is paraphyletic and the other polyphyletic, and a 50% chance 
> that *both* of them are polyphyletic.  I will still give it a 19% 
> chance that both are paraphyletic, but only a 1% chance that both are 
> holophyletic.

And there's a 100% chance that the above paragraph is absolutely
meaningless.

If you were to do a vox-pop poll of paleontologists, I'm sure the majority
would agree that Alvarezsauridae might one day be shown *not* be a natural
grouping (i.e. monophyletic or 'holophyletic' in your usage).  But you see,
the *current* evidence (which, when you think about it, is all we have to
base analyses on) currently points to a monophyletic group comprising
_Alvarezsaurus_, _Patagonykus_ and Mononykinae.  

Perhaps future discoveries will undermine this interpretation - who knows?
I know Ken likes to cast himself as the "Cassandra of Phylogeny" - fated to
be correct, but never believed until after a prediction comes true.
However, to say that a clade *might* be split up as the result of future
discoveries is nothing more than platitude.  Every study allows for this
possibility; but pulling new phylogenies out of thin air has no more
credibility than talking to serpents or the reading of entrails.

By the way, if Randy is using the trivial name "colonae" in the context in
which I think it was intended, the correct name would probably be "coli" (as
in the enteric bacterium _Escherichia coli_).  Also, in keeping with the
Trojan theme above, "Colonae" was (according to Greek mythology) the name of
a small city to the north of Troy.



Tim


------------------------------------------------------------ 

Timothy J. Williams 

USDA-ARS Researcher 
Agronomy Hall 
Iowa State University 
Ames IA 50014 

Phone: 515 294 9233 
Fax:   515 294 3163