Re: Livezey and Zusi's paper plagued with convergence?

[David Marjanovic <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "evelyn sobielski" <koreke77@yahoo.de>
Sent: Sunday, September 30, 2007 7:09 PM

> PS: for all that's being said, I wouldn't have
> quantitative analyses overrule qualitative ones in
> every case.

What exactly do you mean by "qualitative"? Or perhaps I should ask how is it 
possible to measure the quality of a character?

> Or in shorthand:
> - "Cnemial crest present/absent" is not advisable as a
> character.

Sure it is. Consider "frontals separate/fused": the latter condition occurs 
in anthropoids _and_ carcharodontosaurids _and_ pachypleurosaurs _and_ I 
forgot what else. Is it "not advisable as a character"? Not in the least: it 
is a perfectly good autapomorphy of Anthropoidea, _and_ one of 
Carcharodontosauridae, and so on.

What is not advisable is to use too few characters, or correlated 
characters.

> - Good taxon choice will not necessarily increase
> robustness (and might even decrease it), but overall
> reliability (as testability of hypotheses hinges upon
> it)

Where's the difference?

Increasing taxon sampling can lead to trouble if too few characters are 
available.

> PPPS: I had a little dispute last week with a
> co-student who claimed PAUP* was for molecular
> analyses ONLY, "the Prof. said so". Unfortunately I
> forgot the backronym of P.A.U.P. she gave me.
> Something with "Alignment [of DNA sequences]" I think.
> We actually had a brief shouting match (which was
> shocking by itself because we are generally quite
> close friends) as she stood by what I found to be an
> entirely absurd "WTF doesn't EVERYBODY know this?!"
> kind of thing.

Let me repeat my annual lamentation about the vertebrate paleontology 
department at the University of Vienna.