Marcel-Paul Schützenberger refers to Dawkins' appeal to mathematics as a fatal attraction primarily because mathematicians are epistemological zealots.
Fatal attraction pretty much sums up what I have found everywhere I have looked for evolution analysis in mathematics and its cousins, physics and information theory: von Neumann, Yockey, Schützenberger, Patten, Chaitin, Rocha, t'Hooft, Penrose, Wolfram...
That's why I concluded early on that modern evolutionists were embracing the randomness pillar to their own peril, i.e. they should be more malleable to avoid disaster. After reading Schützenberger, I'm thinking the common descent pillar may be endangered as well.
I'm thinking you're right. Even if one generally accepted macro-evolution why the insistance on common descent?
(Rhetorical question. I know the answer.)