Method
While the method has its greatest value when extant species are used for bracketing, the method itself does not not require that both bracketing groups have extant members, nor that the species or group to be bracketed is extinct. The only real requisite is that the two bracketing species/groups be better known, with regard to the trait in question, than the species to be bracketed is.
Read more about this topic: Phylogenetic Bracketing
Famous quotes containing the word method:
“Unlike Descartes, we own and use our beliefs of the moment, even in the midst of philosophizing, until by what is vaguely called scientific method we change them here and there for the better. Within our own total evolving doctrine, we can judge truth as earnestly and absolutely as can be, subject to correction, but that goes without saying.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“You know, I have a method all my own. If you’ll notice, the coat came first, then the tie, then the shirt. Now, according to Hoyle, after that the pants should be next. There’s where I’m different. I go for the shoes next. First the right, then the left. After that, it’s every man for himself.”
—Robert Riskin (1897–1955)
“... the one lesson in the ultimate triumph of any great actress has been to enforce the fact that a method all technique or a method all throes, is either one or the other inadequate, and often likely to work out in close proximity to the ludicrous.”
—Mrs. Leslie Carter (1862–1937)