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A LIKELIHOOD JUSTIFICATION OF PARSIMONY
Author(s) -
SOBER ELLIOTT
Publication year - 1985
Publication title -
cladistics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.323
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 1096-0031
pISSN - 0748-3007
DOI - 10.1111/j.1096-0031.1985.tb00424.x
Subject(s) - cladogram , phylogenetic tree , maximum parsimony , mathematics , inference , maximum likelihood , occam's razor , statistical inference , statistics , evolutionary biology , biology , cladistics , artificial intelligence , computer science , clade , genetics , gene
— A connection is established between maximally parsimonious cladograms and trees of highest likelihood. The assumptions needed to prove this are derivable from the structure of evolutionary theory and are independent of the frequency of homoplasy. The bearing of this justification on alternative methods of phylogenetic inference and on Felsenstein's (1978) proof that parsimony and other phylogenetic methods can be statistically inconsistent is discussed.