Can we identify fossil ancestors of species alive today?
Dr Mark Siddall contends that this is impossible and that the use of stratigraphic data when assembling phylogenies is thus unsupportable. MARK SIDDALL In 1946, Princeton University celebrated its bicentennial with a series of conferences. One of these concerned the contributions of palaeontology to understanding phylogeny and evolution. Apparently, at its end, “members joked about returning to the Tercentenary celebration to see how much has been accomplished…and humbly expressed the hope…that some of the right questions will have been asked [there and then]” 1. Given the august setting in Nassau Hall, and the notable attendees such as Simpson, Mayr, Dobzhansky and Stebbins, I doubt the expression was entirely humble. Still, they were right to wonder about what questions would be asked thereafter. We are now just 2 years past the half-way mark on that 100 year interval and it seems that the only question asked at the 1946 conference that remains interesting was posed by D. M. S. W
