{PDF} The Character Concept in Evolutionary Biology G?nter P. Wagner

This is the best available anthology on the important and difficult problem of clarifying and operationalising the use of character concepts in evolutionary biology. The introduction by Gunter Wagner, a leading evo-devo researcher and clear-minded theoretician, is the most cogent ten-page summary of the scientific difficulties and prospects involved you’ll ever come across. The collection contains papers offering a broad range of perspectives: philosophical, mathematical, historical, comparative, mechanistic. All the papers are informative, and a number are simply excellent and evidently push science forward. I would go as far as to say it should be required reading for any evolutionary biologist.