Abstract
THE study of form has revealed the importance of convergence in the evolution of plants and animals, as well as the inevitable influence of laws of growth which apply to creatures whatsoever their descent. But the significance of convergence would disappear did we not assume that it is superimposed upon some more fundamental structure, and this is the fundamental structure upon which classifications revealing natural relationships are based, according to Dr. W. T. Caiman in his presidential address before the Linnean Society of London (Proc. Linn. Soc. London, 1934-35, p. 145). To illustrate the distinctiveness and significance of the taxonomic view, Dr. Caiman traced the parallel between the morphological classification of the higher Crustacea and the evolution of the group. Here is a natural classification which does violence to none of the conclusions of morphology or of palaeontology, and is consistent with an evolutionary history in which convergence may have played an important part, but never the dominant one.
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Significance of Classification of Organisms. Nature 137, 429 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/137429a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/137429a0