This shouldn’t take a PhD
A lot of criticism lately. Not much to back it up. Too much work to do so, from what they’re telling me. I mentioned earlier that others should attempt to throw in a few more taxa into their studies to see where the nestings really are. That provoked a comment that such a study or such a test would entail a PhD thesis.
I agree.
Creating a large family tree and hundreds of reconstructions is a lot of work. Imagine, for every 100 taxa and 100 characters, that’s 10,000 potential scores to assess. Double each of those inputs and you’re up to 40,000. And when the results don’t match expectations, that’s cause for either scrutiny or celebration. So…
Here’s an opportunity to be critical without having to put very much work into it. No one has to create a matrix in this test. We’ll do it the easy way.
Darren Naish thinks I’m wrong in most of my work. And he does speak for the establishment. So here’s an opportunity to point out exactly where I am wrong while putting in the minimum effort.
Pick two taxa from the large reptile family tree or the large pterosaur family tree that you think don’t belong together. Tell me which one is the oddball in that pairing, the one that does belong in your opinion. That’s it. We’ll discuss the ramifications afterwards. It would be better if you were to try to come up with some reasons why the two sisters don’t belong together and why one belongs elsewhere. But you don’t have to. We’ll put the pairings together and figure out which one was “separated at birth.” : )
What could be easier?
Looking forward to hearing from one or all of you. You will be heard if you treat this seriously. I will.
Read more at The Pterosaur Heresies
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