Here we show that the precision of molecular clock estimates of times has been grossly over-estimated.
But these "molecular clock" estimates are notoriously unreliable.
Where feasible, we used molecular clock estimates to date the ages of the respective lineages.
This genetic separation occurred at ca. 145 240 ka, based on the late Quaternary outwash terrace dating, in agreement with "molecular clock" estimates.
Molecular clock estimates showed that the timing of divergence in Joshua tree was substantially earlier than in the moths, rejecting the hypothesis that a common vicariant event caused the divisions within these species.
Molecular clock estimates and the geographical arrangement of three of the groups suggested that Pliocene geological events in the tectonically dynamic Eastern California Shear Zone may have driven diversification by vicariance.
Molecular clock estimates indicate that lemurs and the lorisoids diverged in Africa during the Paleocene, approximately 62 mya.
Molecular clock estimates indicate the blue-faced honeyeater diverged from the Melithreptus honeyeaters somewhere between 12.8 and 6.4 million years ago, in the Miocene epoch.
Also, the earliest fossils, which do not match up with molecular clock estimates for simian origins, have been found in both Afro-Arabia and Asia.
This would conflict with the molecular clock estimates by evolutionary anthropologist Anne Yoder and others, which predict lemur lorisoid divergence dating between 61 and 90.8 mya.
Molecular clock estimates place the first lissamphibian in the Late Carboniferous, but the first member of Batrachia (frogs and salamanders, but not caecilians) is estimated to have appeared in the Middle Permian using the same technique.
