Just discovered an interesting paper by Leonardo de Oliveira Martins and David Posada. It is titled “Proving universal common ancestry with similar sequences.” It relates to a paper by Douglas Theobald: “A formal test of the theory of universal common ancestry. Nature 2010; 465:219-22.” Although the latter paper is not openly available the more recent one is.
The new paper is worth a look. Not sure about the Theobald one as I do not have access from home.
Am hoping Leonardo writes more about this in his blog: Bayesian Procedures in Biology ….
Theobald has followed up his Nature paper with a couple more. There were exchanges in Nature and Biology Direct.
LikeLike
Thanks for the comment! I just wrote a bit more about it here http://biomcmc.blogspot.com/2012/05/testing-for-common-ancestry.html. And yes, we talk about his replies as well.
LikeLike