During the "Polychaete and Cladistics" course in Iceland after the
Polychaete Conference, one of the students asked me if Hennig (1966)
explicitly stated or used the concept of parsimony, and I said I'd send him
the page reference. Unfortunately, I don't recall who asked me this
question, so I thought I'd throw this out in the hopes that the answer gets
to the intended person.
The only reference to the use of parsimony I have seen is in the form of
what Hennig called his "auxiliary principle," although he never used the
word "parsimony" in his book. The relevant passage from Hennig (1966: 121)
is as follows:
"I have therefore called it an 'auxiliary principle' that the presence of
apomorphous characters in different species 'is always reason for
suspecting kinship [i.e., that the species belong to a monophyletic group],
and that their origin by convergence should not be assumed a priori'
(Hennig, 1953). This was based on the conviction that 'phylogenetic
systematics would lose all the ground on which it stands' if the presence
of apomorphous characters in different species were considered first of all
as convergences (or parallelisms), with proof to the contrary required in
each case. Rather the burden of proof must be placed on the contention that
'in individual cases the possession of common apomorphous characters may be
based only on convergence (or parallelism).'"
Best wishes,
Kirk
------------------------------------------
FELIX QUI POTUIT RERUM COGNOSCERE CAUSAS.
------------------------------------------
Kirk Fitzhugh, Ph.D.
Associate Curator of Polychaetes
Research & Collections Branch
Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History
900 Exposition Blvd
Los Angeles CA 90007
Phone: 213-763-3233
FAX: 213-746-2999
e-mail: kfitzhug at nhm.org
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