A word about competing phylogenetic hypotheses…

…from Coates et al. 2002:
re: basal tetrapods: “Debates about phylogenetic hypotheses concerning these basal nodes are often intense, and conflicts arise over differing taxon and character sets, scores, and coding methods (see Coates et al. 2000; Laurin et al.2000).

And that comes eight yeas before
the advent of ReptileEvolution.com and this blog. So, readers, don’t trust one or another analysis (even this one) before giving them a test on your own or waiting for all the fallout to… fall out. At present, they are competing analyses.

At present
there are broad swathes of agreement in many published trees. The disagreements will ultimately iron themselves out. That some workers object to seeing new solutions to problems they feel they have solved already is just part of the process.

References
Coates MI, Ruta M and Milner AR 2000. Early tetrapod evolution. Trends Ecol. Evol. 15: 327–328.
Coates MI and Ruta M 2001 2002. Fins to limbs: What the fossils say. Evolution & Development 4(5): 390–401.
Laurin, M., Girondot, M., and de Ricqlès, A. 2000. Early tetrapod evolution. Trends Ecol. Evol. 15: 118–123.