Taxonomy

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Taxonomy is a method of categorizing living organisms. The modern system of taxonomy was developed by Swedish Biologist Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778). In recent years, the system has been replaced by phylogeny.

Of note, Linnaeus was a Christian naturalist who was looking for the "created kinds" that creationists believe God made in Genesis. He expected to find a "grove" of trees, each with its own branches. What he found instead was that all of the branches of animals he knew could be traced back to a single trunk. He had no explanation for this finding; that would not come until Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859.

Taxonomic Ranks

  • Domain
  • Kingdom
  • Phylum
  • Subphylum
  • Class
  • Cohort
  • Order
  • Suborder
  • Infraorder
  • Superfamily
  • Family
  • Genus
  • Species
  • Subspecies