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Realism in systematics through biogeographical consilience
Author(s) -
Capellari Renato S.,
Santos Charles Morphy D.
Publication year - 2012
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.1096-0031.2011.00363.x
Subject(s) - consilience , phylogenetic tree , instrumentalism , epistemology , evolutionary biology , congruence (geometry) , taxon , biology , cladistics , ecology , philosophy , social psychology , psychology , biochemistry , gene
There is an overlooked gap between any phylogenetic hypothesis and the natural world shaped by historical evolutionary processes, since the main concern during phylogenetic analyses is solely the search for congruence among characters under a defined criterion. Given a scientific realistic view, however, phylogenetic hypotheses are scientific theories that try to depict the historical series of cladogenetic events among biological entities. In this sense, the challenge is to establish a form of measuring the degree of truthfulness of our phylogenetic hypotheses. Here, we advocate the use of consilient biogeographical hypotheses to recognize the biological meaning of a phylogenetic inference apart from its instrumentalist value. Our proposal is based on the assumption that robust biogeographical hypotheses allows us to be close to the real evolutionary history of taxa. © The Willi Hennig Society 2011.