The Evolution of Phylogenetic Systematics

The Evolution of Phylogenetic Systematics aims to make sense of the rise of phylogenetic systematics—its methods, its objects of study, and its theoretical foundations—with contributions from historians, philosophers, and biologists. This volume articulates an intellectual agenda for the study of systematics and taxonomy in a way that connects classification with larger historical themes in the biological sciences, including morphology, experimental and observational approaches, evolution, biogeography, debates over form and function, character transformation, development, and biodiversity. It aims to provide frameworks for answering the question: how did systematics become phylogenetic?

Andrew Hamilton is Associate Dean in the Honors College at the University of Houston.

List of Contributors

Introduction
Andrew Hamilton

Part One. Historical Foundations
1. Reflections on the History of Systematics
Robert E. Kohler

2. Willi Hennig’s Part in the History of Systematics
Michael Schmitt

3. Homology as a Bridge between Evolutionary Morphology, Developmental Evolution, and Phylogenetic Systematics
Manfred D. Laubichler

Part Two. Conceptual Foundations
4. Historical and Conceptual Perspectives on Modern Systematics: Groups, Ranks, and the Phylogenetic Turn
Andrew Hamilton

5. The Early Cladogenesis of Cladistics
Olivier Rieppel

6. Cladistics at an Earlier Time
Gareth Nelson

7. Patterson’s Curse, Molecular Homology, and the Data Matrix
David M. Williams and Malte C. Ebach

8. History and Theory in the Development of Phylogenetics in Botany: Toward the Future
Brent D. Mishler

Part Three. Technology, Concepts, and Practice
9. Well-Structured Biology: Numerical Taxonomy’s Epistemic Vision for Systematics
Beckett Sterner

10. A Comparison of Alternative Form-Characterization: Approaches to the Automated Identification of Biological Species
Norman MacLeod

11. The New Systematics, the New Taxonomy, and the Future of Biodiversity Studies
Quentin Wheeler and Andrew Hamilton

Index