The phylogeography debate and the epistemology of model-based evolutionary biology.

Phylogeography, a relatively new subdicipline of evolutionary biology that attempts to unify the fields of phylogenetics and population biology in an explicit geographical context, has hosted in recent years a highly polarized debate related to the purported benefits and limitations that qualitative versus quantitative methods might contribute or impose on inferential processes in evolutionary biology. Here we present a friendly, non-technical introduction to the conflicting methods underlying the controversy, and exemplify it with a balanced selection of quotes from the primary biological literature, to invite the philosophy of biology community to pay attention to the elements that have played a primary role in its presumed resolution. We also present the basic features of our own metascientific take on the debate, and point out-as a preliminary step in preparation for upcoming, more detailed treatments-the importance that appeals to authority in fields external to phylogeography per se have played in the current status of this highly visible evolutionary biology dispute. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]