As we saw in the previous dispatch, different craniofacial characters are variously under the control of neutral drift, sexual selection, and thermoregulatory adaptation to the paleoclimate. I suggested that kosher inference of phylogeny (ie lineage) is difficult because the population history signal is confounded by natural selection. One way to go about this would be to control for dimorphism and absolute latitude. That doesn't seem to work. One gets nonsense trees. Might not there be another way?
Phylogeny from Craniometrics
Phylogeny from Craniometrics
Phylogeny from Craniometrics
As we saw in the previous dispatch, different craniofacial characters are variously under the control of neutral drift, sexual selection, and thermoregulatory adaptation to the paleoclimate. I suggested that kosher inference of phylogeny (ie lineage) is difficult because the population history signal is confounded by natural selection. One way to go about this would be to control for dimorphism and absolute latitude. That doesn't seem to work. One gets nonsense trees. Might not there be another way?