Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION
- CHAPTER 2 PATTERNS OF CLASSIFICATION
- CHAPTER 3 PATTERNS OF PHYLOGENY
- CHAPTER 4 HOMOLOGY AND THE EVIDENCE FOR EVOLUTION
- CHAPTER 5 GEOLOGICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL EVIDENCE
- CHAPTER 6 METHODS OF CLASSIFICATION: THE DEVELOPMENT OF TAXONOMY
- CHAPTER 7 METHODS OF CLASSIFICATION: PHENETICS AND CLADISTICS
- CHAPTER 8 METHODS OF CLASSIFICATION: THE CURRENT DEBATE
- CHAPTER 9 CLASSIFICATION AND THE RECONSTRUCION OF PHYLOGENY
- CHAPTER 10 IS SYSTEMATICS INDEPENDENT?
- CHAPTER 11 MECHANISMS OF EVOLUTION: DARWINSM AND ITS RIVALS
- CHAPTER 12 MECHANISMS OF EVOLUTION: THE SYNTHETIC THEORY
- CHAPTER 13 SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE
- CHAPTER 14 PHILOSOPHY AND BIOLOGY
- References
- Author index
- Subject index
CHAPTER 2 - PATTERNS OF CLASSIFICATION
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 May 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION
- CHAPTER 2 PATTERNS OF CLASSIFICATION
- CHAPTER 3 PATTERNS OF PHYLOGENY
- CHAPTER 4 HOMOLOGY AND THE EVIDENCE FOR EVOLUTION
- CHAPTER 5 GEOLOGICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL EVIDENCE
- CHAPTER 6 METHODS OF CLASSIFICATION: THE DEVELOPMENT OF TAXONOMY
- CHAPTER 7 METHODS OF CLASSIFICATION: PHENETICS AND CLADISTICS
- CHAPTER 8 METHODS OF CLASSIFICATION: THE CURRENT DEBATE
- CHAPTER 9 CLASSIFICATION AND THE RECONSTRUCION OF PHYLOGENY
- CHAPTER 10 IS SYSTEMATICS INDEPENDENT?
- CHAPTER 11 MECHANISMS OF EVOLUTION: DARWINSM AND ITS RIVALS
- CHAPTER 12 MECHANISMS OF EVOLUTION: THE SYNTHETIC THEORY
- CHAPTER 13 SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE
- CHAPTER 14 PHILOSOPHY AND BIOLOGY
- References
- Author index
- Subject index
Summary
It is taken for granted today, at least by zoologists, that systematic classifications of organisms can be represented by branching diagrams (dendrograms: Mayr, Linsley, and Usinger 1953) that represent hierarchical arrangements - Darwin's (1859) “groups within groups”. The nested groups are taxa, each of which belongs to a category that represents its level in the hierarchy (Simpson 1961a). In the tenth edition of Linnaeus 's Systema Naturae (1758), he proposed the following categories: Regnum (Kingdom), Classis, Ordo, Genus, Species, to which the categories Phylum and Family were added later. All the taxa at the same level in the hierarchy occupy the same rank and are given the same category. Thus “the rank of a taxon is that of the category of which it is a member” (Simpson 1961a). Modern biological classification is therefore a process of “ordinally stratified hierarchical clustering” (Jardine and Sibson 1971, p. 127), and the result is an aggregational hierarchy (Mayr 1982, pp. 64-6) in which the units, usually species, which constitute its lowest rank, are aggregated in successively higher ranks. The hierarchy is also an inclusive one (Mayr 1982, pp. 205-8) as opposed to an exclusive one:
Military ranks from private, corporal, sergeant, lieutenant, captain up to general are a typical example of an exclusive hierarchy. A lower rank is not a subdivision of a higher rank; thus lieutenants are not a subdivision of captains. […]
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Classification, Evolution, and the Nature of Biology , pp. 10 - 40Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1992