Table Of ContentPhylogenetic
Systematics
Haeckel to Hennig
Species and Systematics
The Species and Systematics series will investigate the theory and practice of sys-
tematics, phylogenetics, and taxonomy and explore their importance to biology in a
series of comprehensive volumes aimed at students and researchers in biology and in
the history and philosophy of biology. The book series will examine the role of bio-
logical diversity studies at all levels of organization and focus on the philosophical
and theoretical underpinnings of research in biodiversity dynamics. The philosoph-
ical consequences of classification, integrative taxonomy, and future implications
of rapidly expanding data and technologies will be among the themes explored by
this series. Approaches to topics in Species and Systematics may include detailed
studies of systematic methods, empirical studies of exemplar taxonomic groups, and
historical treatises on central concepts in systematics.
Editor in Chief: Kipling Will (University of California, Berkeley)
Editorial Board
Sandra Carlson (University of California, Davis, USA)
Marcelo R. de Carvalho (University of Sao Paulo, Brazil)
Darren Curnoe (University of New South Wales, Australia)
Malte C. Ebach (University of New South Wales, Australia)
Christina Flann (Netherlands Centre for Biodiversity Naturalis, The Netherlands)
Anthonoy C. Gill (Smithsonian Institution, USA)
Mark S. Harvey (Western Australian Museum, Australia)
David R. Maddison (Oregon State University, Corvallis, USA)
Olivier Rieppel (The Field Museum, Chicago, USA)
Felix Sperling (Strickland Museum of Entomology, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada)
David M. Williams (The Natural History Museum, London, UK)
René Zaragüeta i Bagils (University of Paris 6, France)
Science Publisher:
Charles R. Crumly, CRC Press/Taylor and Francis
For more information visit:
www.crcpress.com/Species-and-Systematics/book-series/CRCSPEANDSYS
Phylogenetic
Systematics
Haeckel to Hennig
OLIVIER RIEPPEL
CRC Press
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Contents
Series Preface ...........................................................................................................vii
Acknowledgments .....................................................................................................ix
Introduction and Preview ..........................................................................................xi
Author .....................................................................................................................xxi
Chapter 1 The Evolutionary Turn in Comparative Anatomy ................................1
Carl Gegenbaur’s Idealistic Morphology .............................................1
Haeckel’s Assault on Idealistic Morphology ......................................12
The Gegenbaur Transformation .........................................................25
Chapter 2 Of Parts and Wholes ..........................................................................35
Beobachtung und Reflexion ...............................................................35
Single Cause, Complex Effect ............................................................38
Levels and Modes of Individuality .....................................................41
Species, Individuals, History, and Reality .........................................43
Changing Metaphors of Order in Nature: The Ladder,
The Tree, and The Web ......................................................................48
Monophyly: The Evolution of Species and Languages ......................56
Reaching Out Beyond Jena.................................................................61
Chapter 3 The Turn against Haeckel ...................................................................67
The Poverty of Systematics ................................................................67
Hailing from the Hinterland ...............................................................81
Logic Meets History ...........................................................................87
Plato’s Turntable .................................................................................92
Biological Fragments Concerning an Understanding of Man............97
Limits of Scientific Knowledge ........................................................103
Chapter 4 The Rise of Holism in German Biology ..........................................107
The Cell State ...................................................................................107
The Struggle among the Parts ..........................................................113
Glass Half Full or Half Empty? .......................................................119
Mechanics and Biology ....................................................................127
Animal Psychology and Umwelt ......................................................135
The Congress in Prague ...................................................................143
v
vi Contents
Chapter 5 The Rise of German (“Aryan”) Biology...........................................149
A Time of Crisis ...............................................................................149
The Rebirth of Science in a Goethean Spirit ...................................152
Science in the Name of the Volk ......................................................168
Deutsche Biologie .............................................................................176
Chapter 6 Ganzheitsbiologie .............................................................................187
Enkapsis: Hierarchically Structured Complex Wholes ....................187
Bridging from Anatomy to Ecology .................................................195
Singing the Praises of Forests and Lakes .........................................197
Bringing Fossils to Life ....................................................................217
Grotesquely Grandiose: The Evolutionary Synthesis
in Völkisch Spirit ..............................................................................230
Chapter 7 The Ideological Instrumentalization of Biology ..............................243
The Reconstruction of Ernst Haeckel ..............................................243
The Deconstruction of Ernst Lehmann ............................................253
Pioneers of Phylogenetic Systematics: Their Battle against
Idealistic Morphology ......................................................................265
Chapter 8 A New Beginning: From Speciation to Phylogenetics .....................281
The Stresemann School ....................................................................281
The Berlin School Branches Out to Dresden ...................................292
Willi Hennig .....................................................................................297
A Prospectus for Phylogenetic Systematics .....................................299
Chapter 9 Grundzüge: The Conceptual Foundations of Phylogenetic
Systematics .......................................................................................303
Systematics—“Speziesmacherei” or a True Science? ......................303
The Empirical Base of Phylogenetic Systematics ............................307
Phylogenetic Hierarchy ....................................................................312
The Cladogram .................................................................................316
Heterobathmy of Characters ............................................................320
Epilogue ................................................................................................................323
Literature Cited ...................................................................................................327
Index ......................................................................................................................371
Previously Published Books ................................................................................381
Series Preface
The Species and Systematics series is a broad-ranging venue where authors can
provide the scientific community with comprehensive treatments of the history and
philosophy of fundamental concepts in systematic biology, phylogenetics, and the
science of taxonomy. The series also intends to connect historical perspectives to
new ideas and emerging technologies that have implications for the field. The series
is committed to stimulating discussion among students and researchers in biology
on controversial and clarifying ideas related to the future course that we are charting
in biodiversity research.
There are many approaches to the study of biological diversity and to embrace
this, future volumes in the series may include detailed development and comparisons
of existing and novel methods in systematics and biogeography, empirical studies
that provide new insights into old questions and raise new questions to biologists
and philosophers of science, and historical treatises on central and reoccurring con-
cepts that benefit from both a retrospective and a new perspective. Some volumes
will address a single important concept in great depth, giving authors the freedom
to present ideas with their own slant, whereas others will be edited collections of
shorter papers intended to place alternative views in sharp contrast.
For science in general and certainly for systematics, few things are more
significant than placing the origin and evolution of an idea or principle in its his-
torical context. In this book, Olivier Rieppel does a masterful job of fixing Haeckel
as an anchor point for a thread that weaves through and touches virtually every
important principle of phylogenetics, leading to Hennig’s ideas that launched the
cladistic revolution. The detailed consideration of how this thread of ideas played
out in the arena of heavy biopolitics, which colors both language and intent, gives
readers new insights into many concepts fundamental to current and future research.
Phylogenetic Systematics: Haeckel to Hennig is an excellent example of scholarship
and a very fine addition to the series that will make the reader pause and think and
then evoke discussion, both of which are chief goals of the series.
Kipling Will
Berkeley, California
vii
Acknowledgments
I am deeply indebted to Chuck Crumly, the editor at CRC Press, Kipling Will, the
series editor, and Jennifer Ahringer, production coordinator, for their interest, help,
and support in seeing this book though publication. I am equally deeply indebted to
staff, who received me warmly and offered much help in the University Archives
in Göttingen, Greifswald, Halle/Saale, Harvard, Tübingen, and Zurich; at the State
Archives in Basel and Zurich; at the Archive of the Max Planck Society, Berlin-
Dahlem; at the Bundesarchiv (Federal Archives, formerly Berlin Documentation
Center), Berlin-Lichterfelde; and at the Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, Halle/
Saale. Invaluable help in the search for illustrations was provided by the following
individuals:
Gernot J. Abel, Copenhagen
Irmela Bauer-Klöden, Universitätsarchiv Tübingen
Tad Bennicoff, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Washington DC
Anja Bugaiski, Archive, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg
Sabine Hackethal, Historische Arbeitsstelle, Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin
Heike Hartmann, ETH-Bibliothek Bildarchiv, Zurich
Gerd Hennig, Tübingen
Uwe Hoβfeld, University of Jena
Joachim W. Kadereit and Christian George, Botanical Garden, Mainz
Lynn Nyhart, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Michael Schmitt, University of Greifswald
Editha Schubert, Deutsches Entomologisches Institut, Müncheberg
Klaus Taschwer, Vienna
Susanne Uebele, Archive, Max Planck Society, Berlin-Dahlem
Renate Würsch, Universitätsbibliothek Basel
Willi Xylander, Willi-Hennig-Archive, Senckenberg Museum Görlitz
Equally invaluable help in the location of obscure literature was provided by
Christine Giannoni, Director of the Field Museum Library
ix
