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THE UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY Eric Snively A ... - Ohio University

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and constructional morphology reveal developmental and material capacities and<br />

constraints on structure. Phylogenetic analysis allows testing of evolutionary<br />

hypothesis that anse from apparent rnorphological similanty. Functional analysis<br />

entails the atomization and subsequent integration of biological subsystems in<br />

order to understand a more complex system. Finaliy, deductive methods involve<br />

quantitative modeling, which gives rise to predictions about how natural systems<br />

operate. These methods are readily applied to extant organisms.<br />

Assessing functional morphology of extinct animals presents obvious<br />

constraints on some of the preceding approaches. Ontogenetic study is limited to<br />

evidence from hard tissues, and low sample sizes curtail developmental<br />

investigation of large fossil vertebrates. Constructional morphology of fcssil hard<br />

tissues is readily amenable to study, but that of soft tissues requires inference of<br />

their presence and assumptions about their composition. This caution also<br />

overiies functional analysis of organs that indude unpreserved components.<br />

Fossil systems can be modeled deductively, but falsifying such a model is even<br />

more difiicult than with studies of extant organisms (Lauder 1995). Of these<br />

approaches, only phylogenetic analysis of fossil organisms attains kill reciprocity<br />

with neontology. Phylogenetic study of extant biota requires a palaeontological<br />

perspective for falsification (Gauthier et al. 1988)<br />

The common tnpwire for many of these approaches is the required inference<br />

of unpreserved structures. This impediment is surrnountable to some degree<br />

through careful examination of the fossil evidence, using principles of<br />

comparative anatomy.

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