I am sorry to hear that you still think that molecular systematics is unreliable. I do not share your view that it is a house of cards and I see no reason why it should tumble down like one any time soon. I am not denying that morphology has a role in systematics. In fact, taxonomy is impossible without knowledge of evolutionary divergence, and such data can at present only be obtained through a study of morphological characters. Further, morphological characters can often serve as corrobative evidence for molecular systematics.



Over the past 2 decades or so, molecular systematics have answered many different questions in evolution. For example, the whales have evolved into such completely different animals that it was next to impossible to infer their ancestry using their morphology. With the help of molecular systematics, however, we now know that artiodactyls like the hippo, the pig, and cattle are among the closest living relatives of the whales. Recently discovered SINE characters (another type of molecular characters) confirm this relationship. Most excitingly, paleontologists then discovered that some fossil whales with legs have the signature leg bone structures that are found only in artiodactyls. Thus a mystery that has been around ever since Darwin claimed that whales evolved from land mammals has been solved. Molecular systematics is science, because predictions can be made and tested. In the case of whales, the prediction by molecular systematists that whales are descedants of an artiodactyl has been verified by fossil evidence.



As long as molecular systematics can produce results that are scientifically verifiable, it will live on as a science.



Regards

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