Does Parsimony Exclude Convergent Traits?

It is often mistakenly believed that parsimony assumes that convergence is rare; in fact, even convergently derived characters have some value in maximum-parsimony-based phylogenetic analyses, and the prevalence of convergence does not systematically affect the outcome of parsimony-based methods.

What does parsimony mean in phylogenetics?

In general, parsimony is the principle that the simplest explanation that can explain the data is to be preferred. In the analysis of phylogeny, parsimony means that a hypothesis of relationships that requires the smallest number of character changes is most likely to be correct.

Is parsimony always correct?

The principle of parsimony is an assumption that is probably true for most situations but need not always be true. It's possible that the actual evolutionary history of a group of species is not the one that involved the fewest changes -- because evolution is not always parsimonious.