A recent article by Scotland et al. (2003; hereafter referred to as SEA) purporting to examine the value of morphological data in phylogeny reconstruction has been received critically by several systematists (Jenner, 2004; Wiens, 2004). As paleontologists—and in an area of systematics restricted solely to morphological data—we take exception to many of the arguments put forward by SEA and feel we may provide a unique perspective in the debate. In their paper, SEA argued for a redefined role for morphology in phylogeny reconstruction, one in which “rigorous and critical anatomical studies of fewer morphological characters, in the context of molecular phylogenies, is a more fruitful approach to integrating the strengths of morphological data with those of sequence data” (p. 539). Such a statement is bold and therefore warrants a critical analysis, as it would effectively neuter the ability of morphological data to generate novel phylogenies. Though issues such as accuracy, support, character coding, and character conceptualization were discussed by SEA, in all cases these discussions resorted to a “too few characters” argument. As the authors characterized it, the “main constraint of morphology-based phylogenetic inference concerns the limited number of unambiguous characters available for analysis in a transformational framework” (p. 539). Additionally, the merits of increased taxon sampling in the context of morphological data were discussed by SEA, and found to be lacking. Though several of the views presented by SEA are not novel (see Hedges and Sibley, 1994, and Hedges and Maxson, 1996), they provide the most detailed recent discussion of this position. We agree with many of the points made by SEA, especially the call for more critical and rigorous analysis of morphology; however, we draw different conclusions from the data. It is our goal to reexamine some of the arguments put forward by SEA, in order to illustrate that a much more optimistic conclusion exists regarding the current and future role of morphology in phylogeny reconstruction.

中文翻译：

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形态学在系统发育重建中的作用：来自古生物学的观点

苏格兰等人最近的一篇文章。（2003 年；以下称为 SEA）声称检查形态学数据在系统发育重建中的价值已被一些系统学家批判地接受（Jenner，2004 年；Wiens，2004 年）。作为古生物学家——并且在系统学领域仅限于形态学数据——我们不同意 SEA 提出的许多论点，并认为我们可以在辩论中提供独特的视角。在他们的论文中，SEA 主张重新定义形态学在系统发育重建中的作用，其中“在分子系统发育的背景下，对较少形态特征的严格和关键的解剖学研究是一种更有成效的方法，可以将形态学数据的优势与那些序列数据”（第 539 页）。这样的声明是大胆的，因此值得进行批判性分析，因为它将有效地中和形态学数据生成新系统发育的能力。尽管 SEA 讨论了准确性、支持、字符编码和字符概念化等问题，但在所有情况下，这些讨论都诉诸于“字符太少”的论点。正如作者所描述的那样，“基于形态学的系统发育推断的主要约束涉及在转换框架中可用于分析的明确特征的数量有限”（第 539 页）。此外，SEA 讨论了在形态学数据背景下增加分类单元采样的优点，但发现缺乏。尽管 SEA 提出的一些观点并不新颖（参见 Hedges 和 Sibley，1994 年，以及 Hedges 和 Maxson，1996 年），但它们提供了最近对这一立场的最详细讨论。我们同意 SEA 提出的许多观点，尤其是呼吁对形态学进行更严格和更严格的分析；然而，我们从数据中得出了不同的结论。我们的目标是重新审视 SEA 提出的一些论点，以说明关于形态学在系统发育重建中的当前和未来作用存在更乐观的结论。