corroboration

[Dr. Mike Sharkey]

> I seem to recall that compatibility analysis *can* be used to evaulate
>probabilities; i.e., the probability that these characters support the
same tree.
>
>Meacham wrote several papers on this in the 80's, but I don't have the
references
>at hand.

        Compatibility attempts to measure the probability that a character is
random, viz. given the distribution of a character, with respect to other
characters, what is the probability that it is composed of random elements
(each taxon with a particular character state obtained it convergently for
example)?
        A low probability of being random infers a high probability of being
informative...according to proponents. Of course, others suggest that a low
probability of being random suggests that the probability of the character
being random is low but nothing more.



Dr. Michael J. Sharkey
Department of Entomology
S-227 Ag. Science Building N.
University of Kentucky
Lexington, Kentucky 40546-0091
email msharkey at ca.uky.edu
tel (606)257-9364
fax (606)323-1120
home page
http://www.uky.edu/~mjshar0