Phylogeny and Conservation

[Barry M. OConnor]

At 4:41 PM 1/27/98, Daniel Barker wrote:
It would be better to replace phylogeny with expressly phenetic
>clustering on the basis of phenotype (e.g. protein sequence, biochemistry,
>morphology), for the same reason that UPGMA is no longer used for
>phylogenetic reconstruction: similarity is not phylogeny, phylogeny is not
>similarity.

Yes, but isn't phylogeny the best Predictor of Overall similarity?

Barry M. OConnor                phone: (734) 763-4354
Museum of Zoology               FAX: (734) 763-4080
University of Michigan          e-mail: bmoc at umich.edu
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1079  USA