Talk:Primitive (phylogenetics)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 Please help improve this article or section by expanding it.
Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. (January 2007)

I just noticed this article has been flagged for possible removal to Wiktionary. Since the quality of being primitive (basal) is a fairly important concept in biology, any help in expanding this bare stub into an encyclopedic article would be appreciated. Some ideas:

  • Include what methods biologists use to determine whether an organism is primitive or derived. (For example: morphology, genetics)
  • Explain how the quality of being primitive is subjective, based on comparisons.
  • Explain how these comparisons relate to cladistics.

Ginkgo100 22:03, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

User:LifeScience has kindly expanded this article, although it still needs some work, particularly citations. (Unfortunately, my books will be packed for at least another couple of months.) I wonder if it might be better to merge derived and basal together with this one. --Ginkgo100talk 20:15, 27 February 2007 (UTC)