linguistic:voice_change
History

While some descriptions of taxonomic history attempt to date taxonomy to ancient civilizations, a truly scientific attempt to classify organisms did not occur until the 18th century, with the possible exception of Aristotle, whose works hint at a taxonomy. Earlier works were primarily descriptive and focused on plants that were useful in agriculture or medicine.

There are a number of stages in this scientific thinking. Early taxonomy was based on arbitrary criteria, the so-called "artificial systems", including Linnaeus 's system of sexual classification for plants (Linnaeus's 1735 classification of animals was entitled " Systema Naturae " ("the System of Nature"), implying that he, at least, believed that it was more than an "artificial system").

Later came systems based on a more complete consideration of the characteristics of taxa, referred to as "natural systems", such as those of de Jussieu (1789), de Candolle (1813) and Bentham and Hooker (1862–1863). These classifications described empirical patterns and were pre- evolutionary in thinking.

The publication of Charles Darwin 's On the Origin of Species (1859) led to a new explanation for classifications, based on evolutionary relationships. This was the concept of phyletic systems, from 1883 onwards. This approach was typified by those of Eichler (1883) and Engler (1886–1892).

The advent of cladistic methodology in the 1970s led to classifications based on the sole criterion of monophyly, supported by the presence of synapomorphies. Since then, the evidentiary basis has been expanded with data from molecular genetics that for the most part complements traditional morphology.