[Taxacom] Monophyly is testable?

[Bob Mesibov]

Hi, Jim.

I shouldn't have started this as I was (figuratively) going out the
door, but:

"Find a bunch more characters" - creates new, untested hypothesis.

"...or make a prediction on a character distribution. If they tell the
same inferred story or the prediction works, hypothesis is still good,
no problem." - *agreement* doesn't test a hypothesis, there could be
other hypotheses which make the same predictions. (Apologies to Mr
Popper.)

"If they don't, amend the hypothesis to accommodate the additional
evidence.." - creates new, untested hypothesis.

"or explain away the evidence to retain a comfortable or elegant
hypothesis...or go and find some other evidence that  tells the story
you want..." - some of that in the literature, true.

But you've forgotten: "We tried this by three different inferential
methods and got the same result." Implied: Consensus is a test of sorts,
so our tree must be a *true* representation of history.

More in a week, if this discussion has the legs of the paraphyly one and
is still creaking along then...
-- 
Dr Robert Mesibov
Honorary Research Associate
Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery
and School of Zoology, University of Tasmania
Home contact: PO Box 101, Penguin, Tasmania, Australia 7316
Ph (03) 64371195; 61 3 64371195
Webpage: http://www.qvmag.tas.gov.au/mesibov.html