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:
“There is assuredly no more effectual method of clearing up ones own mind on any subject than by talking it over, so to speak, with men of real power and grasp, who have considered it from a totally different point of view.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (182595)
“I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution.”
—Ulysses S. Grant (18221885)
“The method of painting is the natural growth out of a need. I want to express my feelings rather than illustrate them. Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement.... I can control the flow of paint: there is no accident, just as there is no beginning and no end.”
—Jackson Pollock (19121956)