Question

The unweighted method treats all mutations as equivalent.

(a) True

(b) False

I had been asked this question at a job interview.

The question is from Character Based Methods topic in portion Phylogenetic Tree Construction Methods and Programs of Bioinformatics

Answer 1

The correct option is (a) True

To elaborate: This may be an oversimplification; mutations of some sites are known to occur less frequently than others, for example, transversions versus transitions, functionally important sites versus neutral sites. Therefore, a weighting scheme that takes into account the different kinds of mutations helps to select tree topologies more accurately. The MP method that incorporates a weighting scheme is called weighted parsimony.