Editing Cladistics (section)

== History ==
[[File:Willi Hennig2.jpg|thumb|upright|Willi Hennig 1972]]
[[File:Peter Chalmers Mitchell 1920.jpg|thumb|upright|Peter Chalmers Mitchell in 1920]]
[[File:CSIRO ScienceImage 2955 Robert J Tillyard 18811937.jpg|thumb|upright|Robert John Tillyard]]

The original methods used in cladistic analysis and the school of taxonomy derived from the work of the German [[entomologist]] [[Willi Hennig]], who referred to it as '''phylogenetic systematics''' (also the title of his 1966 book); but the terms "cladistics" and "clade" were popularized by other researchers. Cladistics in the original sense refers to a particular set of methods used in [[Phylogenetics|phylogenetic]] analysis, although it is now sometimes used to refer to the whole field.{{sfn|ps=|Brinkman|Leipe|2001|p=323}}

What is now called the cladistic method appeared as early as 1901 with a work by [[Peter Chalmers Mitchell]] for birds<ref>Schuh, Randall. 2000. Biological Systematics: Principles and Applications, p.7 (citing Nelson and Platnick, 1981). Cornell University Press (books.google)</ref><ref name="FolinsbeeKaila">Folinsbee, Kaila et al. 2007. 5 Quantitative Approaches to Phylogenetics, p. 172. Rev. Mex. Div. 225-52 (kfolinsb.public.iastate.edu)</ref> and subsequently by [[Robert John Tillyard]] (for insects) in 1921,<ref>{{Cite book|title = Trees of life: Essays in the philosophy of biology|last = Craw|first = RC|publisher = Kluwer Academic|year = 1992 |isbn = 978-94-015-8038-0|location = Dordrecht|pages = 65–107|editor-last = Griffiths|editor-first = PE|chapter = Margins of cladistics: Identity, differences and place in the emergence of phylogenetic systematics}}</ref> and [[Walter Max Zimmerman|W. Zimmermann]] (for plants) in 1943.<ref>Schuh, Randall. 2000. Biological Systematics: Principles and Applications, p.7. Cornell U. Press</ref>  The term "[[clade]]" was introduced in 1958 by [[Julian Huxley]] after having been coined by [[Lucien Cuénot]] in 1940,<ref>{{Harvnb|Cuénot|1940}}</ref> "cladogenesis" in 1958,<ref name="ReferenceA">Webster's 9th New Collegiate Dictionary{{full citation needed|date=July 2023}}</ref> "cladistic" by [[Arthur Cain]] and Harrison in 1960,<ref>{{Harvnb |Cain |Harrison |1960}}</ref> "cladist" (for an adherent of Hennig's school) by [[Ernst Mayr]] in 1965,<ref>{{harvnb|Dupuis|1984}}</ref> and "cladistics" in 1966.<ref name= "ReferenceA" /> Hennig referred to his own approach as "phylogenetic systematics". From the time of his original formulation until the end of the 1970s, cladistics competed as an analytical and philosophical approach to systematics with [[phenetics]] and so-called [[evolutionary taxonomy]]. Phenetics was championed at this time by the [[Numerical taxonomy|numerical taxonomists]] [[Peter Sneath]] and [[Robert Sokal]], and evolutionary taxonomy by [[Ernst Mayr]].<ref name="Laurin 2023">{{cite book |last1=Laurin |first1=Michel |title=The Advent of PhyloCode: The Continuing Evolution of Biological Nomenclature |date=3 August 2023 |publisher=CRC Press |isbn=978-1-000-91257-9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-P3BEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA1 |language=en}}</ref>

Originally conceived, if only in essence, by Willi Hennig in a book published in 1950, cladistics did not flourish until its translation into English in 1966 (Lewin 1997). Today, cladistics is the most popular method for inferring phylogenetic trees from morphological data.

In the 1990s, the development of effective [[polymerase chain reaction]] techniques allowed the application of cladistic methods to [[biochemical]] and [[molecular genetics|molecular genetic]] traits of organisms, vastly expanding the amount of data available for phylogenetics. At the same time, cladistics rapidly became popular in evolutionary biology, because [[computer]]s made it possible to process large quantities of data about organisms and their characteristics.