Although neither the drift hypothesis nor the contraction hypothesis supplies anything like precise likelihoods for these evidential claims, experts readily agree that each of these observations is much more likely on the drift hypothesis than on the contraction hypothesis.
But most of all the focus is justified by a unique characteristic of whole-genome data: under a model of rearrangements, duplications, and losses, it is possible to compute very precise maximum-likelihood estimates of the true evolutionary distance, as we have a shown in a series of papers [ 12- 15].
Recall why agreement, or near agreement, on precise values for likelihoods is so important to the scientific enterprise.
There are many legitimate scientific contexts where, although scientists should have enough of a common understanding of the empirical import of hypotheses to assign quite similar values to likelihoods, precise agreement on the numerical values is unrealistic.
Had the document been adhered to, "in all likelihood the precise consequences here would have been avoided", the prosecutor said.
Pressing witnesses with questions that appear to have precise answers enhances the likelihood that the innocent will be prosecuted and the guilty will escape, Dr. Thomson said.
Similarly, the likelihood of precise deletions of retrotransposons occurring is negligible (van de Lagemaat et al. 2005).
Second, the Pathd8 software has been introduced as especially suited for large datasets, being only less precise compared with penalized likelihood methods, but giving more sensible answers for extreme data sets.
Thus, even when precise values for individual likelihoods are not available, the value of a likelihood ratio range may be objective enough to strongly refute one hypothesis as compared to another.
