We live in the age of comparative genomics, and it may seem that there is not much point in
reconstructing phylogenies using morphological data anymore. As more and more genes …

A recent article by Scotland et al.(2003; hereafter referred to as SEA) purporting to examine
the value of morphological data in phylogeny reconstruction has been received critically by …

In this article we explore the paradox of why morphological data are currently utilized less for
phylogeny reconstruction than are DNA sequence data, whereas most of what we know …

Organismic and morphological approaches to biology have lately come under attack from a
variety of corners in both teaching and research. However, the main moti-vations for these …

Understanding the natural world is not possible without an extensive knowledge of
organismal morphology. The encyclopedia of life (Wilson, 2003) would be an empty, sterile …

In the past two decades, molecular investigations of systematic problems have progressed
from uncommon curiosities to a standard means of elucidating phylogenetic history. This …

Accuracy of phylogenetic methods may be assessed in terms of consistency, efficiency, and
robustness. Four principal methods have been used for assessing phylogenetic accuracy …

Three concepts of ancestry are distinguished, the individual organism as ancestor, the
population or species as ancestor, and the supraspecific taxon as ancestor. Of these, only …

Species-level phylogenies derived from molecular data provide an indirect record of the
speciation events that have led to extant species. This offers enormous potential for …

The methods of data exploration have become the centerpiece of phylogenetic inference,
but without the scientific importance of those methods having been identified. We examine in …