Jim
Nets of Wonder
Even though the abstract for Statistical evidence for common ancestry: New tests of universal ancestry was re-written for the revised version, without the words that originally aroused my suspicions, the motivation is still clear in the revised abstract.
From the blog post by the lead author, it looks to me like the research is part of a personal crusade against creation doctrine, and not what I would call serious, responsible research. Also the correspondence with “Evolution” confirms my suspicions about his dishonesty.we also need formal methods for quantifying the evidential support for CA over the alternative hypothesis of separate ancestry (SA).
It has been my understanding throughout that your group's development of tests for common ancestry is motivated by the need for such tests to address hypotheses of current scientific interest, of which special creation is not one. This response from you indicates otherwise, and this makes me think I misunderstood. If refuting the doctrine of special creation is the sole or even a primary motivation for this development, as your email suggests, then I seriously question whether it should appear in Evolution.