[Taxacom] critique of molecular systematics

[John Grehan]

Just to keep the molecular pot on the boil some may be interested in the
following publication:

 

Schwartz, J.H. and Maresca, B. 2007. Do molecular clocks run at all? A
critique of molecular systematics.

 

A pdf can be located at
http://www.sciencebuff.org/humans_and_orangutan.php

 

The paper gives a historical overview of the development of molecular
assumptions and their applications. Regardless of your position on
molecular vs morphological evidence, the paper draws attention to some
interesting aspects such as Caccone and Powell (1989) appealing to
morphology to validate molecules, particularly their claim that
"molecular data are in excellent agreement with all other evidence
indicating that humans and African apes are each other's relatives
followed by orangutans, gibbons, and the Old World monkeys." Ironically
(or tragically depending on how you look at all of this), Schwartz and
Maresca point out that the majority of studies that claimed a close
relationship between humans and one or more or both African apes were
molecularly based, and thus based on the very molecular assumption used
by Caccone and Powell. Further, the few morphological studies published
around that time favoring a human-African ape relationship was not
derived from rigorous morphological analysis, but from accepting the
human-African ape relationship promoted by molecular systematics. Of
course the real irony is that the majority of substantiated
morphological apomrphies point to the orangutan, not the African apes.

 

If you like irony or tragedy, there appears to no shortage in the
history of molecular systematics theory.

 

John Grehan

 

Dr. John R. Grehan

Director of Science and Collections

Buffalo Museum of Science1020 Humboldt Parkway

Buffalo, NY 14211-1193

email: jgrehan at sciencebuff.org

Phone: (716) 896-5200 ext 372

 

Panbiogeography

http://www.sciencebuff.org/biogeography_and_evolutionary_biology.php

Ghost moth research

http://www.sciencebuff.org/systematics_and_evolution_of_hepialdiae.php

Human evolution and the great apes

http://www.sciencebuff.org/human_origin_and_the_great_apes.php