More on the 'cladistics' of sequences

[John Grehan]

-----Original Message-----
From: Taxacom Discussion List [mailto:TAXACOM at LISTSERV.NHM.KU.EDU] On
Behalf Of pierre deleporte

 

John's point, as I understand it, is: characters polymorphic in putative


outgroups should be discarded. He himself uses some, but visibly feels 

uneasy with that.

 

 

I'm still having problems getting my new outlook to work effectively,
but hopefully I will get it straight next week (never liked outlook, but
I might not have much choice).

 

Pierre's inference above is correct in that my concern for polymorphic
characters is for those characters where outgroup character states
occuring in just some of the outgroup species and are also found within
the in group. The question then becomes one of whether the pattern is
due to plesiomorphy or parallelism as has been pointed out and
algorithms are one way one might present an argument either way.

 

John