Ancestor-descendent relationships

[MAGarland at AOL.COM]

TDibenedetto writes:

> Ancestry is a very specific type of relationship; far more specific
>  than sister-group relationship. .... But a claim of ancestry would entail
>  the assertion that one species was transformed into another. There is no
>  pattern in character distributions which can distinguish this type of
>  relationship from more general sister-group relationships. So we can
>  speculate about ancestry, and we can find evidence to disprove a claim of
>  ancestry, but there is no type of evidence to indicate such a relationship.

It's interesting that you can determine ancestor-descendent relationships of
*characters.*  So why not lineages?

Naively,

Mark A. Garland
Florida Department of Environmental Protection
2600 Blair Stone Road, Mail Station 2500
Tallahassee, Florida 32399
U.S.A.
mark.garland at dep.state.fl.us
magarland at aol.com