Paleoanthropology's relationship with evolutionary theory has not been entirely happy. The anatomists who dominated paleoanthropology for its first century had little interest in biological diversity and its causes, or in hominins' place in that diversity, or in the rules and principles of zoological nomenclature - which they basically ignored entirely. When, as the twentieth century passed its midpoint, Ernst Mayr introduced theory to paleoanthropology in the form of the gradualist Modern Evolutionary Synthesis (in its most hardened form), he shocked students of human evolution not only into a strictly linear evolutionary mindset, but into a taxonomic minimalism that would for years obscure the signal of phylogenetic diversity and vigorous evolutionary experimentation among hominins that was starting to emerge from a rapidly enlarging hominin fossil record. Subsequently, the notion of episodic as opposed to gradualist evolution re-established phylogenies as typically branching, and species as bounded entities with births, histories, and deaths; but the implications of this revised perspective were widely neglected by paleoanthropologists, who continued to reflexively cram diverse new morphologies into existing taxonomic pigeonholes. For Pleistocene hominins, the effective systematic algorithm became, "if it isn't Australopithecus, it must be Homo" (or vice versa), thereby turning both taxa into wastebaskets. The recent development of the "Extended Evolutionary Synthesis" has only exacerbated the resulting caricature of phylogenetic structure within Homininae, by offering developmental/phenotypic plasticity as an excuse for associating wildly differing morphologies within the same taxon. Homo erectus has been a favorite victim of this foible. Biological species are indeed morphologically variable. But they are only variable within limits; and until we stop brushing diverse morphologies under the rug of developmental plasticity, paleoanthropology will remain at a major impasse.

中文翻译：

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进化论、系统学和人类起源研究。

古人类学与进化论的关系并不完全愉快。主导古人类学一世纪的解剖学家对生物多样性及其成因、古人类在该多样性中的地位、或动物学命名法的规则和原则兴趣不大——他们基本上完全忽略了这些。当 20 世纪过了中点时，恩斯特·迈尔 (Ernst Mayr) 以渐进主义现代进化综合论（以其最坚硬的形式）的形式将理论引入古人类学，他震惊了人类进化的学生，不仅让他们进入了严格的线性进化思维模式，而是进入了一种分类学极简主义，这种极简主义多年来掩盖了从迅速扩大的人科动物化石记录中开始出现的系统发育多样性和人科动物之间活跃的进化实验的信号。随后，与渐进式进化相反的情景式概念将系统发育重新确立为典型的分支，将物种重新确立为具有出生、历史和死亡的有界实体；但这种修正后的观点的影响被古人类学家广泛忽视，他们继续条件反射地将各种新的形态塞进现有的分类学分类目录中。对于更新世古人类，有效的系统算法变成了“如果不是南方古猿，那一定是人属”（反之亦然），从而将两个类群都变成了废纸篓。“的近期发展 生物物种确实在形态上是可变的。但它们只是在一定范围内可变；除非我们停止在发育可塑性的地毯下轻描淡写各种形态，否则古人类学将仍处于主要僵局。生物物种确实在形态上是可变的。但它们只是在一定范围内可变；除非我们停止在发育可塑性的地毯下轻描淡写各种形态，否则古人类学将仍处于主要僵局。