[Taxacom] Confused origins

[Richard Zander]

The perennial discussions of whether humans and chimps, or humans and
orangs are more closely related are not without merit. I've pointed out
in the past that molecular trees and morphological trees may be
decoupled, and both trees may be true at once.

One might consider that the most parsimonious solution is for the
molecular and morphological trees to be congruent. How? Well if there
were a human-orang intermediate taxon with lots of molecular traits
matching the human-orang ones and few matching chimp-gorilla, it might
change the molecular cladogram from 

(((human, chimp) gorilla) orang) to ((((human, "X") orang) chimp)
gorilla).  

In fact, given parsimony as a goal, the lack of congruence of molecular
and morphological cladograms is actual evidence of the existence of such
a beast! For instance, "X" could be extinct, or even still around,
peering at us from beneath beetling brows in covert behind bushes in the
high Himalayas or deep woods in northwestern North America.

I cannot claim this idea as my own, but was notified of this in a letter
to me yesterday from A. Yeti, General Delivery, Kathmandu.

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Richard H. Zander 
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Missouri Botanical Garden
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