[Cladismus and a 'historical' turn in the study of functional adaptation. A critical commentary on Rehkämper]

In a recently published article, Gert Rehkämper takes a critical stance towards cladistic influences on modern comparative morphology. He singles out as culprits a pre-darwinian notion of homology, a neglect of functional thinking and a misunderstanding of the principle of actualism. Furthermore, 'history' should not be used as an explanatory principle. In contrast, I argue that most central notions in evolutionary biology carry a pre-darwinian heritage, especially the term 'adaptation', without compromising their usefulness in contemporary debates. With the advent of new techniques of phylogenetic reconstructions and comparative analyses, 'history' has become a powerful and quantitative explanatory resource.