The soft explosive model of placental mammal evolution.

Our soft explosive model for the diversification of placental mammals brings into agreement previously incongruous molecular, fossil, and ancestral life history estimates, and closely aligns with a growing consensus for a similar model for bird evolution. We show that recent criticism of the soft explosive model relies on ignoring both experimental controls and statistical confidence, as well as misrepresentation, and inconsistent interpretations of morphological phylogeny. More generally, we suggest that the evolutionary properties of adaptive radiations may leave current molecular dating methods susceptible to overestimating the timing of major diversification events.