Fig. 1
From: Combating the Assumption of Evolutionary Progress: Lessons from the Decay and Loss of Traits
Figure illustrating the pattern of divergence of life, from Darwin’s Origin of Species. The “bushy” character of a phylogenetic tree is even more appreciated by evolutionary biologists today. This is not a “great chain of being” moving to greater complexity or perfection, but rather many branching chains spreading outward in diversity. And, even more relevant here, what is true of whole organisms is also true of their individual traits: movement in many directions, rather than a unified progression