Darwin and phylogenetics: Past and present

Abstract

Phylogenetics is the science of tree reconstruction. The evolution and transformations of phylogenetics is analyzed from the unique illustration included in Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. From the nineteenth century up to the present the various treatments of the concept of pattern and process applied to relationships and evolutionary modes are discussed. Emphasis is put on the Hennigian phylogenetics and successive cladistic and probability approaches. The fate of the concept of homology is explored from Darwin’s time up to contemporaneous molecular methods.