What, then, is cladistics?
Cladistics, or phylogenetic systematics, is a way of analyzing relationships that was first brought to the fore in the late 1960s, although it had been proposed in Germany decades earlier. By the early 1980s, it had demonstrated its practical and theoretical value to enough of the community of systematists that its methods became commonplace in studies of all branches of organisms, in most top scientific journals, and in the National Science Foundation’s decisions about awards in systematic biology. Its influence has grown in succeeding years to the point that statements about evolutionary relationships are no longer taken seriously in the community of systematists unless backed by a cladistic analysis. This is true regardless of the type of organism and regardless of whether the postulated relationship is based on morphology, molecules, behavior, or fossils. There is no guarantee that any given cladogram will not be revised or overturned by further study (new techniques are constantly
