Field et al. Redux.

On 12 February 1988 (by coincidence Charles Darwin’s birthday), a paper published in Science by Katherine Field, Rudy Raff, and colleagues presented the first credible molecular analysis of metazoan phylogeny based on sequences from the small subunit ribosomal RNA gene (SSU). Here I examine the main conclusions reached in this manuscript. I reconstitute their dataset and, by recompiling software available in 1988, I consider how they might have achieved a more accurate tree. I show how three common methods to avoid systematic error - more data, careful taxon sampling and superior models of evolution - overcome the errors that exist in the original paper. This approach illustrates the basis of some of the major advances of the past 25 years resulting in our current understanding of animal phylogeny.