Cladistics and universal application

Don’t know why but the process / application of cladistics has been on my mind recently.

Table of contents

Investigating cladistics and their role and implementation in biology and beyond

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Cladistics

According to web search results, cladistics is a method of biological classification that groups organisms based on shared traits that are derived from a common ancestor¹². Cladistics can be used to construct phylogenetic trees and cladograms that show the evolutionary history and relationships between species¹⁴. Cladistics also uses specific terms to describe different types of traits, such as plesiomorphy, apomorphy, synapomorphy, and autapomorphy¹². Cladistics was first developed by Willi Hennig in the 1960s and is now widely accepted as the best method for phylogenetic analysis².

References

Source: Conversation with Bing, 23/04/2023(1) Cladistics - Definition, Explanation and Quiz | Biology Dictionary. Accessed 23/04/2023. (2) Cladistics - Wikipedia. Accessed 23/04/2023. (3) Introduction to Cladistics - University of California Museum of Accessed 23/04/2023. (4) Cladistics: Definition, Method & Examples | Sciencing. Accessed 23/04/2023.

Conclusion

so it occurs to me this is a universal process as humans we seek to classify our environment in order to understand it. But does it have true universality? Can the process be applied to all in our domain not just biological entities and thus reveal different relationships between domains.

Classification is fundamental to our understanding seeking ancestry, commonality and relationships and this seems to apply to so much more than biology. An added value here at least in the biological domain is DNA which can provide chemical proof of linkage rather than just morphology.

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