Tag: cladistics
Life’s History and the “Ode to Joy”
The history of life can perhaps be likened to a collection of different musical themes. In Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, the four beginning notes are the theme.
Fossil Friday: Direct Fossil Ancestors of Living Species?
Willi Hennig, the founder of phylogenetic systematics (cladistics), recognized that finding and demonstrating direct ancestors would be a very hard task.
Farewell to My Teacher, Gerhard Mickoleit
He had rather secretly always been a devout Protestant Christian and he too had some doubts about the causal adequacy and sufficiency of neo-Darwinism.
The Puzzle of Hox Gene Homology — With Parsimony Taking the Hit
I am old enough to remember when, during the cladistics revolution, parsimony was the Final Referee with the Loudest Whistle.
Fossil Friday: Fake Amber and the Piltdown Fly
Such simple forgeries are commonly sold to tourists in Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Eastern Europe, and Eastern Asia.