Tempo and mode in evolution: phylogenetic inertia, adaptation and comparative methods
Tempo and mode in evolution: phylogenetic inertia, adaptation and comparative methods
Abstract Before the Evolutionary Synthesis, ‘phylogenetic inertia’ was associated with theories of orthogenesis, which claimed that organisms possessed an endogenous perfecting principle. The concept in the modern literature dates to Simpson (1944), who used ‘evolutionary inertia’ as a description of pattern in the fossil record. Wilson (1975) used ‘phylogenetic inertia’ …