Rename this thread please...Re: Striking a balance, weighting and Cladistics

[P.Hovenkamp]

Dear all,
If you are going to have this discussion all over again, please do so under
another thread - so I can hit the DEL-button more rapidly...

At 07:15 AM 2/15/01 -0600, someone wrote:
>At 10:40 PM 2/14/01 -0800, someone wrote:
>
>>This is probably amply discussed in the literature but has never managed
>>to penetrate my thick skull:  why is there a desire to weight characters a
>>priori, unless to influence the outcome of an analysis away from results
>>driven by parsimony?
>
>Well, I suppose this IS the reason.  But it is motivated by the knowledge
>that there is absolutely no reason to assume that evolution has been
>parsimonious.  Parsimony is simply the best default in the absence of other
>data.  Occam's Razor does not say that the simplest explanation is always
>right; just that in the absence of other data it is a safer bet than any
>convoluted hypothesis.


P. Hovenkamp
Nationaal Herbarium Nederland - Leiden
PO Box 9514
2300 RA  Leiden
The Netherlands
hovenkamp at nhn.leidenuniv.nl
http://nhncml.leidenuniv.nl/rhb