Why Fish Don't Exist

A group of scientists who, in the late 20th century, set out to investigate the conventional understanding of the tree of life by retracing its branches (the term comes from the Greek word klados, or branch). In doing so, they found that there was no scientific basis for the evolutionary group known as ‘fish’ and that fish have no more in common with one another, evolutionarily speaking, than any group of species that share an environment would have.

A term coined by a British scientist named Francis Galton—a relative of Charles Darwin—who used Darwin’s ideas about natural selection to create his own field of study, which suggested that traits like poverty and illiteracy were hereditary, and that through selective breeding, you could create a master race of humans. This study, which he named after the Greek words for ‘good’ and ‘birth’ caught the attention of David Starr Jordan, who became one of its early promoters in the United States.

The first specimen of a newly discovered species, typically placed in a jar and stored on a museum shelf. If lost, they cannot be replaced; the next example of the species to be placed in a jar and stored on a shelf is called a neotype.