The Bayesian "star paradox" persists for long finite sequences

Abstract

The "star paradox" in phylogenetics is the tendency for a particular resolved tree to be sometimes strongly supported even when the data is generated by an unresolved ("star") tree. There have been contrary claims as to whether this phenomenon persists when very long sequences are considered. This note settles one aspect of this debate by proving mathematically that the chance that a resolved tree could be strongly supported stays above some strictly positive number, even as the length of the sequences becomes very large. © The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution. All rights reserved.