NEW EVIDENCE FROM A PLANT STUDY
The continuing error of accepting divergence times from genetic evidence without adjusting for generation time is shown by a new study (Wilf, P,, M. A. Carvalho, M. A. Gandolfo, and N. Ruben-Cuneo. 2017. Eocene lantern fruits from Gondwanan Patagonia and the early origin of Solanaceae. Science, 355:71-75). I think they got it right.
Their research shows a minimum divergence time for fossil lantern fruits of the Pysalinae of 52.2 million years ago. That differs greatly from three different molecular divergence estimates of ~30, ~11, and ~9 million years ago.
Therefore, it seems evident that the error described in my blog of May 31, 2013 applies to some work on evolutionary, or ancestral, trees of plants as well.
If you read the blog post [ evolutioninsights.blogspot.com/2013/05/science-screw-up-no-1.html ] you may recognize GIGO used to describe the algorhythms used in molecular phylogeny that do not include a generation time correction. Early generations of computer programmers used it to mean GARBAGE IN, GARBAGE OUT when errors were input into programs. The principle still applies when conceptual errors are not accounted for, it isn't the computer that is making the mistake,
The generation time error is especially gross when applied to distant relationships.
Joseph G. Engemann Emeritus Professor of Biology, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo February 15, 2017
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