[Taxacom] 53 million year rabbit foot

[Jason Mate]

I think Ken´s point is that nodes on dated phylogenies come with an uncertainty range, and hopefully the authors of the dated phylogeny provided them. Saying 35my and 35my (-20my) are very different things, so it is hardly proof of a fatal flaw in the edifice on fossil calibrated molecular phylogenies. In any case, the more fossils the better the calibration. In regards to crown versus stem, I would point out that if the fossil looks like a rabbit but you are uncertain about its exact placement, you assign it to all the rabbits (basal). It is not necessarily the best solution but it is the most parsimonius.
Jason