HENRY

A quote from Rod Page, on “The Past and Future of Systematic Biology“:

Beyond my own hobbyhorses, it seems foolish to try and predict the future. Obviously we will have more data, faster computers, clever methods of analysis, and - sadly - fewer taxa left extant to study. My own perceptions of systematics are inevitably colored by events at the time I started to join the field. Rather like stereotypically lumbering dinosaurs unaware of the small mammals scurrying about their feet, arguments about cladistics versus phenetics rumbled on while all about them statistical methods started to blossom. The early work of Joe Felsenstein and others on topics such as maximum likelihood models and simulated annealing has given rise to modern descendants such as fast maximum likelihood methods, and Bayesian approaches, now among the most popular tree building methods.

Yet, the 1980s was also a period of great interest in large-scale patterns in biogeography, diversification, coevolution, palaeontology, morphology, and development. Whereas some of these areas, notably development, have gone from strength to strength, others have not fared as well. Perhaps this is because they are hard, or perhaps they were not posed in tractable ways. But I hope the current generation of systematists will occasionally step back from the animated cursors and Beowolf clusters, and revisit some of the big questions that so engaged the discipline 20 years ago.

Posted on April 9th, 2008 by Simon Greenhill