dentist: Computing uncertainty by sampling points around maximum likelihood estimates

O_LIIt is standard statistical practice to provide measures of uncertainty around parameter estimates. Unfortunately, this very basic and necessary enterprise is often absent in macroevolutionary studies. C_LIO_LIdentist is an R package allows an estimate of confidence intervals around parameter estimates without an analytic solution to likelihood equations or an approximation based on local curvature at a peak. This package works by "denting" the likelihood surface by sampling points a specified distance around the maximum likelihood estimate following what is essentially a Metropolis-Hastings walk. C_LIO_LIWe describe the importance of estimating uncertainty around parameter estimates as well as demonstrate the ability of dentist to accurately estimate confidence intervals. C_LIO_LIWe introduce several plotting tools to visualize the results of a dentist analysis. dentist is freely available from https://github.com/bomeara/dentist, written in the R language, and can be used for any given likelihood function. C_LI