Bracing for another decade of deception: the promise of Secondary Brooks Parsimony Analysis

Brooks Parsimony Analysis (BPA) and secondary Brooks Parsimony Analysis (SBPA) are found to be lacking an optimality criterion and, more generally, to be lacking the coherence of a research program. Published descriptions of the methodology are self-contradictory regarding whether they can be used on a priori specified host trees and whether they can be used in host-parasite cospeciation at all. The application of missing data introduces unacknowledged additional problems. Rules for the a posteriori duplication of entities in secondary BPA and the concatenation of associate codes never are specified. Duplication and concatenation are found to be applied both capriciously and unparsimoniously. Claims that SBPA removes inclusive or-ing from the method are found to be false. The simplest application of the method is found to be superficially unanalytical; others introduce temporal difficulties or defy logical interpretation altogether.