Parsimony with and without Scientific Justification

Content Provider	Semantic Scholar
Author	Kluge, Arnold G.
Copyright Year	2001
Abstract	Brower’s (2000, Cladistics 16, 143–154) pursuit of a nonevolutionary cladistics, like those of others (e.g., Scotland, 2000, Syst. Biol. 49, 480–500), fails for lack of a scientific justification. His operational explication of parsimony does not necessarily rule out the use of other criteria on which to base the identification of a hierarchical branching pattern, nor does he give a compelling reason for why just that one kind of pattern is sought. In the absence of evolutionary theory, such as the descent of species, and the modification of character states, one from another, there is no scientific reason to seek congruence among character hierarchies whose origins, functions, and fates are not necessarily the same. Brower’s operational parsimony is no substitute for phylogenetic parsimony, where requirements for ad hoc hypotheses of homoplasy are justifiably minimized, assuming only “descent, with modification.” In addition
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Alternate Webpage(s)	http://www.ib.usp.br/hennig/Kluge2001.pdf
Language	English
Access Restriction	Open
Subject Keyword	Cladistics Evolution Forty Nine Hoc (programming language) Maximum parsimony (phylogenetics) National origin Occam's razor Phylogenetic tree Phylogenetics Requirement Zeller's congruence
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article