 Felsenstein’s (1978) paper is also impactful because of his commitment to statistical consistency as the standard bearer for evaluating competing statistical approaches. For Felsenstein and many other phylogeneticists, showing that parsimony is statistically inconsistent is a fatal blow. But not everyone agrees. In fact, some authors argue that it is close to an irrelevant consideration. We now turn to this debate about the importance of consistency as an example of how philosophy plays a central role in phylogenetic theory.