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PARSIMONY AND CHARACTER WEIGHTING.

Elliott Sober1

  • 1Department of Philosophy, University of Wisconsin, Madison WI 53706.

Cladistics : the International Journal of the Willi Hennig Society
|December 18, 2021
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Parsimony, a method for phylogenetic reconstruction, is re-examined using likelihood. Character frequency is not ideal for parsimony, and character adaptiveness is also questioned from a likelihood perspective.

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Area of Science:

  • Evolutionary biology
  • Phylogenetics
  • Systematic biology

Background:

  • Parsimony is a common method for inferring evolutionary trees.
  • Character weighting is crucial for parsimony-based phylogenetic analyses.
  • Previous work by Sober (1983, 1984a) established a likelihood justification for parsimony.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To apply likelihood justification of parsimony to character weighting problems.
  • To evaluate the utility of character frequency as a descriptor for parsimonious phylogenetic reconstruction.
  • To examine the concept of conservative or nonadaptive characters from a likelihood standpoint.

Main Methods:

  • Application of likelihood justification of parsimony.
  • Analysis of character weighting issues in phylogenetics.
  • Evaluation of character frequency and adaptiveness in phylogenetic inference.

Main Results:

  • Character frequency is argued to be an inadequate descriptor for parsimonious phylogenetic reconstructions.
  • The notion that conservative or nonadaptive characters are superior is challenged when viewed through a likelihood lens.

Conclusions:

  • Likelihood-based approaches offer a critical perspective on parsimony methods, particularly regarding character weighting.
  • Rethinking character selection criteria, such as frequency and adaptiveness, is necessary for robust phylogenetic inference.