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Using Phylogenetic Analysis to Investigate Eukaryotic Gene Origin
Published on: August 14, 2018
Reflections on systematics and phylogenetic reconstruction
1Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15217, USA. jhs@pitt.edu
Abstract:
I attempt to raise questions regarding elements of systematics--primarily in the realm of phylogenetic reconstruction--in order to provoke discussion on the current state of affairs in this discipline, and also evolutionary biology in general: e.g., conceptions of homology and homoplasy, hypothesis testing, the nature of and objections to Hennigian "phylogenetic systematics", and the schism between (neo)Darwinian descendants of the "modern evolutionary synthesis" and their supposed antagonists, cladists and punctuationalists.
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