The contest between parsimony and likelihood

Systematic Biology 53 (4):644-653 (2004)
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Abstract

Maximum Parsimony (MP) and Maximum Likelihood (ML) are two methods for evaluating which phlogenetic tree is best supported by data on the characteristics of leaf objects (which may be species, populations, or individual organisms). MP has been criticized for assuming that evolution proceeds parsimoniously -- that if a lineage begins in state i and ends in state j, the way it got from i to j is by the smallest number of changes. MP has been criticized for needing to assume some model or other of the evolutionary process even though biologists often do not know what that process really is. This paper critically evaluates both criticisms.

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Elliott Sober
University of Wisconsin, Madison

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References found in this work

The aim and structure of physical theory.Pierre Maurice Marie Duhem - 1954 - Princeton,: Princeton University Press.
Two dogmas of empiricism.W. V. Quine - 1987 - In Paul K. Moser (ed.), A priori knowledge. New York: Oxford University Press.

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