Of Trees, nodes, and minimal paths (was Re: Urheimat in Lithuania?)

[X99Lynx at aol.com]

In a message dated 3/29/2000 3:38:01 AM, whiting at cc.helsinki.fi wrote:

>(and Steve Long went astray when
>he assumed that a non-innovating branch from a node never innovated again
>until the next node),

Quick note:

In this matter, Steve Long never, ever 'went astray.'

Steve Long (with admirable patience and civility) kept (and keeps) pointing
out that if you are defining your tree in terms of ONLY CERTAIN 'shared
innovations', then those 'other' innovations in the non-innovating branch are
not in the data and NOT represented in your tree.  Remember that, like other
cladistic modeled trees, the UPenn tree being discussed was entirely built on
(in form at least) a narrowed sample of 'data' and therefore ENTIRELY
excluded from the tree those innovations you are referring to.

Steve Long did and does walk the true path.

with admirable patience and civility,
Steve Long