cladistics as a means of classifying living organisms

Running Head : CLADISTICS

Cladistics and Evolution

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Cladistics and Evolution

The earth is a continually evolving sphere , composed of billions of different creatures - humans , bees , flies , ants , dogs , cats , crocodiles birds , trees , vines , plants the list is endless . The number is so vast that one lifetime would not be enough to be able to witness every single organism in full detail . Plus , there are of course trillions more of organisms so small they are virtually invisible to the naked eye . Each of these living

things are different from each other that one would find it impossible to believe that they just might be related to one another .In science , there is always a need to be able to study every single thing that might be of interest to the researcher . And unfortunately , to a very dedicated scientist , each living organism is an interesting subject . But how to begin analyzing thousands and thousands of species And how to rationale the great diversity found all around the earth

Before going to that , one must first learn that Biology , the science that deals with living organisms , had a very slow and stunted growth Aside from the inadequate technology that would allow better understanding of different organisms , Biology also battled against several feuds , such as the beliefs and dogmas of the Church (Silver 2000 . Evolution is a concrete example of a Biological idea that was turned down and criticized over and over again by certain societies and groups of people (Silver , 2000 . For some time , the study on evolution showed a very slow progress , until several evidences and techniques gave rise to new knowledge and a better understanding on the

Cladistics is one of the tools used to help study and promote evolution This technique was designed by Willi Hennig in the 1950 's as a way of species classification . In classifying , organisms can be packed into groups , creating an organized and systematic way of differentiating and comparing certain types of species . In cladistics this classification is done based on the organism 's ancestry . This way , organisms that are said to be from a common ancestor would be classified and grouped in a family called the clade (Kazlev , 2001 . Cladistics is very much based on the evolution of the organism . This type of classification not only helps group families together , but also gives an idea on how the organism evolved through time , when did it branched out from its family , and what features did it develop that made it different

A cladistics data can be seen in a diagram called the cladogram . This is a picture of lines , with smaller lines branching from different positions . The point on which a branch arises shows the common ancestor the two branches were derived from . This means that both organisms on the branches have a set of shared characteristics and features derived from a single origin (Kazlev , 2001 . This suggests an evolution , on which an organism slowly changed through time , gaining or losing...