Biological Metaphor and Cladistic Classification : An Interdisciplinary Perspective (Anniversary Collection)

The dynamic aspect of biological systems-the birth, growth, and death of individual organisms, the evolution of one form into another over time-has formed the basis for metaphors used in many fields for both artistic and heuristic purposes. Cladistic classification uses a tree whose branch points are based on the possession of derived or relatively recent characteristics, rather than primitive ones.