Status of plant systematics

[James Francis Lyons-Weiler]

"Barry M. OConnor" <bmoc at UMICH.EDU> wrote:


> Thank goodness we can now actually find the TRUE tree and don't have to
> worry about those old fashioned HYPOTHESES anymore!  And isn't it great
> that truth = conventional wisdom??  I thought we were actually trying to do
> SCIENCE here.
>

This is something of a non sequitur.  The hypotheses you refer to are
estimates of the true tree.  We hope that our best hypotheses reflect
biological reality; that's a given.  Whenever one says something like "we
don't know if we have the true tree", I take it to mean "in the best
hypothesis".

J LW.