Cladistic hypotheses

[Karl Magnacca]

On 23 Nov 2005 at 17:10, Matt Buys wrote:
> I just got a reviewers report on a manuscript where he/she says that
> the word hypothesise as in the example below is misused: "The cladistic
> analysis hypothesises the presence of spotted and unspotted leaves as
> having developed mainly in parallel in X, Y and X."
>
> According to the reviewer, "An analysis may show some result but it
> does not per se hypothesise anything. The authors are free to
> hypothesise what they think fit from the results of an analysis."
>
> 1. Is'nt a cladogram a hypothesis of relationships AND of character state distributions?

It *is* a hypothesis, it does not hypothesize anything.  It supports the
author(s)'s hypothesis of parallel development.  The author is the one
doing the hypothesizing (in a technical sense, anyway).

Karl
=====================
Karl Magnacca, USGS-BRD
PO Box 11, Hawaii Natl. Park, HI 96718
"Democracy used to be a good thing, but now it has
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