falsifying evolution

[Richard Zander]

A couple messages have mentioned random patterns. My understanding is that
random number tables are massaged so that there are no obvious patterns even
if - just through randomness - a pattern like "22222222222222222222222222"
might turn up when generating a table.

I generated five random data sets mimicking 800-bp molecular data sets with
5 taxa each. All produced single, fully resolved trees. In most, there was
at least one branch with Bremer support of 4, and in one, there was one
branch with Bremer support of 10.
The CI of all trees was around .4, similar to that of real data sets.
Clearly, real molecular data in published trees usually do support
morphological data sufficiently to have drowned out a "random pattern" that
is quite distinct, but tests are needed to evaluate molecular data that do
not.

I have a MSDOS utility that will generate (psuedo-)random data sets. Anyone
who wants a copy, let me know.

R. Zander


Richard H. Zander, Curator of Botany
Buffalo Museum of Science
1020 Humboldt Pkwy
Buffalo, NY 14211 USA
email: rzander at sciencebuff.org
voice: 716-895-5200 x 351


----- Original Message -----
From: John Grehan <jrg13 at PSU.EDU>
To: <TAXACOM at USOBI.ORG>
Sent: Sunday, August 15, 1999 10:40 PM
Subject: falsifying evolution


> Wolfgang W?ster wrote
>
> >We do not (normally) get "total incongruence of characters". Certainly
> >there is incongruence. However, if you do a good morphological
> >phylogenetic analysis with a large number of characters for a certain
> >group, and then another one using, say, some DNA sequence, you will see
> >a fair amount of congruence between the results. Perfect? No (unless you
> >are very lucky), but a very long way INDEED from a random pattern, which
> >you might expect from separately created "kinds".
>
> I agree its a long way from a random pattern. I was looking at
incongruence
> as total
> for those groups of characters that are incongrunet. In many cases there
is a
> predominent grouping of characters, but there appear to be many cases
where
> the situation never seems to get any better. However, I do not understand
> why a random pattern of characters would be necessarily be expected from
> separately created kinds if they were created according to a heirarchical
> design plan. I'm not saying that they were, just that if this were the
view then
> grouping characters would not be a problem for creationists.
>
> John Grehan