Imagine that. a branching tree rather than a beeline for the one true form. A theory in crisis.
Bush’s fault!
I’m just wondering which of the branches were specified.
Haekel and other early Darwinians latched on the old Greek model of the chain of being. The branch model is no more valid. It comes from animal husbandry. Darwin several times alludes to this science, since he had personal knowledge of it. Anyway, if we go by the evidence, we should show virtually parallel lines ending in dots whose convergence can be extrapolated, but at a time unknown. Bottom line: no one knows anthing about the common ancestor.