support the use of maximum parsimony. Brower argues that whether a tree is wrong is fundamentally untestable, unlike the question of whether a tree is the shortest among examined ones.

Alternate characterization and rationale

In phylogenetics, parsimony is mostly interpreted as favoring the trees that minimize the amount of evolutionary change required (see for example ). Alternatively, phylogenetic parsimony can be characterized as favoring the trees that maximize explanatory power by minimizing the number of observed similarities

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