Re: How to Train Your New Papers

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

>  Paul, G.S., and Carpenter, K. 2010. Allosaurus Marsh, 1877
>  (Dinosauria, Theropoda): proposed conservation of usage by
>  designation of a neotype for its type species Allosaurus fragilis
>  Marsh, 1877. Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature 67(1):53-56.

Good.

>  Smith, S.A., Beaulieu, J.M., and Donoghue, M.J. 2010. An uncorrelated
>  relaxed-clock analysis suggests an earlier origin for flowering
>  plants. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
>  107(13):5897-5902. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1001225107.
>
>  ABSTRACT: We present molecular dating analyses for land plants that
>  incorporate 33 fossil calibrations, permit rates of molecular
>  evolution to be uncorrelated across the tree, and take into account
>  uncertainties in phylogenetic relationships and the fossil record.

Good so far.

>  We attached a prior probability to each fossil-based minimum age,

Are there any maximum ages? (I don't have access to the paper here.) If 
not, it had to be _expected_ that many of the molecular dates would be 
too old. Minimum ages can only push molecular dates down 
(stratigraphically down), and when there's nothing to push them up, down 
is where they'll stay. Appendix 10 of my 2007 paper with Michel Laurin 
demonstrates this at excruciating length...