Systematics and taxonomy
Field · 1735 onward · Biology, stage 2: Map the fields
Systematics is the study of how organisms are related and how to name and group them. Linnaeus gave it a workable notation in the eighteenth century, the two-part Latin name and a hierarchy of ranks, before anyone had a theory of why the hierarchy existed. After Darwin the groups were reinterpreted as branches of a family tree, and since the 1960s classification has been built explicitly from inferred ancestry rather than from overall similarity.
What it claims
- Every organism gets one unique two-part name and a place in a nested hierarchy.
- The nested pattern is a fact about descent, not a convenience of filing.
- A valid group must contain an ancestor and all of its descendants; groups defined by shared appearance alone are not valid.
Key ideas
People
Sources
- Systematics Wikipedia
- Taxonomy (biology) Wikipedia
- The Linnean Society of London The Linnean SocietyHolds Linnaeus's own collections, and the society where Darwin and Wallace's papers were first read in 1858.
