Fifteen years ago, I think it inconceivable that editors should have offered, or a reviewer
accepted, a title such as mine. After all, evolution is a theory about the history of life; …

No one in this century can speak with greater authority on the progress of ideas in biology
than Ernst Mayr. And no book has ever established the life sciences so firmly in the …

The field of plant taxonomy has transformed rapidly over the past fifteen years, especially
with regard to improvements in cladistic analysis and the use of new molecular data. The …

The power of an anthropological approach to long-term history lies in its unique ability to
combine diverse evidence, from archaeological artifacts to ethnographic texts and …

The study of marine plankton has traditionally focused on those or ganisms that appeared to
have obvious ecological significance in un derstanding the major patterns of biological …

Recent discoveries of new fossil hominid species have been accompanied by several
phylogenetic hypotheses. All of these hypotheses are based on a consideration of hominid …

Currently a controversy is raging as to which of three competing methodologies of biological
classification is the best: phenetics, cladistics, or evolutionary classification. The merits and …

Examination of Paleogene distal humeri and a survey of homologous articulations in living
primates allows some anatomical correlation with elbow mechanics and the occurrence of …

Adaptive zones are arguably the key to interpreting the relationship of form, function, and
phylogeny. Simpson (1944, 1953) introduced the concept of adaptive zones for …

Following an introduction which discusses the need for and importance of plant taxonomy,
the following chapters are contained in this book: newline˜(1) The evolution of theories of …