Problem: As part of your studying for this assessment you decided to teach your roommate, a non-science major about phylogenetic trees (this is an excellent way to study btw). You tell them that phylogenetic trees are hypotheses of evolutionary relationships. Their response is "How can you ever he confident in evolutionary relationships if they are just hypotheses?"
1. First explain how hypotheses work in science.
2. Then discuss how determining phylogenetic relationships are no different than any other hypothesis testing in science. In your answer, be sure to explain the relationship between the number of taxa and hypotheses and the ways in which we narrow down to the most likely hypothesis.