Joel Cracraft

From EvoWiki

Joel Cracraft, a paleornithologist interested in the phylogeny of Aves. Cracraft's research has been marked by controversy. In a series of papers authored in the early 1980s, Cracraft attempted one of the first large-scale cladistic analyses of Aves, and it was by and by, a monumental failure. Most dubious among his conclusions was holophyly of Hesperornithiformes, Podicipediformes and Gaviiformes (=Gaviomorphae). Cracraft has also resurrected the argument for ratite holophyly, although this viewpoint is considerably at odds with the data at hand. Cracraft has also been enamored throughout his studies on avian phylogeny with vicariant biogeography, arguing that this was a significant factor in the early evolution of birds, for which there is absolutely no evidence. I refer the reader to Olson (1985) and Feduccia (1996) and The Neornithine 'Big Bang' for a fairly brutal deconstruction of Cracraft's collected works.

Also noteworthy was Cracraft's joint elaboration (with Niles Eldredge) of a phylogenetic species concept in contrast to Mayr's biological species definition.

JGK