>>>>There is a very simple answer to your question. It is: garbage in, garbage out. IOW, a tree is only as good as the characters that are used to construct it.

>>

>>This hypothetical data set is better (more robust, contains less homoplasy, and has evenly distributed characters and therefore even branch lengths) that any real data set that has ever been published. So what is your point about garbage?>>



It is garbage because your hypothetical data set has nothing to do with any real world cases in which the term "not monophyletic" were used. In these cases, the cladists did not use the simpler, more elegant, more powerful term polyphyletic because that is simply not true. They could have used the term paraphyletic but that is likely to reveal their true intentions. So, many cladists hide behind the ambiguous term "not monophyletic" because their sledgehammer is being aimed at taxa that few people other than the dogmatic cladists will likely disqualify.



If you are claiming that your hypothetical case has anything to do with real world cases in which the term "not monophyletic" have actually been used, then please cite such cases. Otherwise you are simply making an entirely unsupported, fraudulent claim.

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