I have a question about the "random addition sequence" option of PAUP and
PHYLIP, which allows one to search from a wide variety of initial trees,
each defined by the order in which taxa are introduced to the search
algorithm. The question is: Is there any reason for confidence that the
global optimum can be found by starting from any of these initial points?
If not, wouldn't it be better to initialize each search with a random tree
generated by some algorithm such as the coalescent?
