Sistemática filogenética hennigiana: revolução ou mudança no interior de um paradigma?

Abstract

Phylogenetic Systematics, a method to reconstruct evolutionary trees created by Willi Hennig in 1955 and expanded in 1966, is often considered a new paradigm that revolutionized biological classifications when compared to former schools of systematics such as evolutionary taxonomy. Such an approach to the history of systematics is mainly based on Kuhn's view of the progress of scientific knowledge. However, we can question the validity of the revolutionary status - in the Kuhnian view - attributed to Hennigian phylogenetics. Herein, we discuss the shared attributes of phylogenetic systematics and evolutionary taxonomy, both deeply rooted in Darwin-Wallace's evolutionary theory, and why Hennig's method is a development of Mayr's and Simpson's proposals for biological classification, explicit in the synthetic evolutionary theory of the years 1930 and 1940. In this sense, they adjust to the popperian vision of a "natural selection" of scientific hypothesis. Yet, phylogenetic systematics is a robust and objective scientific method, thus having characteristics that allow it to "survive" in the struggle for existence with other schools of systematics.