Big Math

[Doug Yanega]

>My puzzle to Taxacomers is more simple:  what is a physical solution to,
>say, parsimony analysis of a data set?

That's easy. It's called "neighbor-joining". Problem is, it leads to
a different solution than actual parsimony analysis. The reason it
fails as an analogy is the same reason you can't come up with ANY
truly analogous physical solution: because - by the very nature of
the process - a physical approach will lead to a SINGLE solution
(like neighbor-joining), while parsimony yields *multiple*,
equally-plausible solutions. You might as well try to anticipate
which square centimeter a penny will land in after being tossed from
the top of the Washington Monument. Unless you can figure some way to
work in something like Chaos Theory or Heisenberg's Principle, I
don't think there's a satisfactory answer to your "puzzle".

Peace,
--

Doug Yanega        Dept. of Entomology         Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California - Riverside, Riverside, CA 92521
phone: (909) 787-4315 (standard disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
            http://entmuseum9.ucr.edu/staff/yanega.html
   "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
         is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82