Kirk J. Fitzhugh

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Kirk J. Fitzhugh
Born1957
Dallas, Texas
NationalityEnglish, American
Alma materGeorge Washington University
Known forSystematics and evolutionary biology of polychaetes known as fan worms and the philosophical foundations of phylogenetic systematics.
AwardsThorne research fellow
Scientific career
Fields Evolution
Institutions Curator Museum of Natural History, Los Angeles County
Doctoral advisor V. A. Funk

Kirk J. Fitzhugh is the curator at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, a position he has held since 1990. His research focuses on the systematics of polychaetes and on the philosophical foundations of evolutionary theory. [1] Fitzhugh is a critic of DNA barcoding methods as a technical substitute for systematics. [2] He attends Willi Hennig Society meetings where he has argued that "synapomorphy as evidence does not meet the scientific standard of independence...a particularly serious challenge to phylogenetic systematics, because it denies that the most severely tested and least disconfirmed cladogram can also maximize explanatory power." [3] :429 His graduate supervisor was V. A. Funk, from the U.S. National Herbarium, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution MRC. He completed his doctoral thesis on Systematics and phylogeny of Sabellid polychaetes in 1988 while he was a research scientist at the LA County museum [4] He married a lawyer named Nancy E. Gold in 1989. [5]

Contents

Publications

Secondary co-authorship

References

  1. "Recent Research by J. Kirk Fitzhugh, Ph.D." Natural History Museum, Los Angeles County. Archived from the original on April 1, 2016. Retrieved August 2, 2012.
  2. Darwling, J. (2006). "The value of barcoding". BioScience. 56 (9): 710–711. doi: 10.1641/0006-3568(2006)56[710:tvob]2.0.co;2 . JSTOR   10.1641/0006-3568%282006%2956%5B710%3ATVOB%5D2.0.CO%3B2.
  3. Kluge, A. G. (1999). "The science of phylogenetic systematics: Explanation, prediction, and test" (PDF). Cladistics. 15 (4): 429–436. doi:10.1006/clad.1999.0123. hdl: 2027.42/73926 . Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-08-10. Retrieved 2012-08-03.
  4. Funk, V. A. "Senior Research Botanist & Curator". Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Retrieved August 2, 2012..
  5. "Nancy E. Gold Is Married to Dr. J. Kirk Fitzhugh". New York Times. New York. October 16, 1989. p. 1.