WHO CARES ABOUT MODELS WHEN YOU HAVE GENOMES?

Abstract

There is no question about it: genomic data are revolutionizing biology. This is certainly evident in the fields of population genetics and phylogenetics for which genome-scale analyses have been used to study a myriad of evolutionary processes and organismal relationships across the Tree of Life. While genomic data have unquestionably advanced our understanding of biology by incredible leaps and bounds, the ease and affordability of generating such large and complex data has unfortunately, in some circumstances, led to the idea that simply “throwing more data” at a particular evolutionary question is likely to be sufficient. This notion has led to an emphasis on obtaining larger datasets with the hope that one can overcome most any obstacle by simply increasing the sample size without considering the fit of these large, complex datasets to the highly oversimplified models that we often use to analyze these types of data. The title of my dissertation represents a rhetorical sarcastic question that my research has addressed.