[Taxacom] PhD course offered: Phylogenetic Systematics and Molecular Dating

[Sergio Vargas]

Hi,

> Wonder if they will teach them to be honest about fossil calibrated molecular dates being minimal dates, rather than transform them into actual or maximal as is the usual (mis)practice.

the only thing they to teach them is to be aware that the dates they
get are only as good as the age constraint they have on the root. Most
people find extremely disappointing that the analysis is so heavily
determined by the root constraint; this usually needs to be usually a
maximum age constraint. Is a hard to solve problem...

sergio