Colin Patterson (biologist)

Colin Patterson FRS (1933–1998), was a British palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum in London from 1962 to his official retirement in 1993^[1] who specialised in fossil fish and systematics, advocating the transformed cladistics school.^[2]

Colin Patterson
Born	(1933-10-13)13 October 1933 London
Died	9 March 1998(1998-03-09) (aged 64) London
Nationality	British
Occupation	Palaeontologist
Parent(s)	Maurice W. Patterson (father) Norah J. Patterson (mother)
Awards	Romer-Simpson Medal Linnean Medal

Education and early life

Colin Patterson was born on 13 October 1933 in Hammersmith, London, the son of Maurice William Patterson (1908–1991) and Norah Joan (née Elliott) (1907–1984).^[3]

After National Service in the Royal Engineers, Patterson studied zoology at Imperial College, London (1954–57). He undertook postgraduate research into fossil fishes at University College London and obtained a PhD in 1961.^[3]

Career and research

Patterson was one of the architects of the cladistic revolution in the British Museum of Natural History in the 1970s. In addition to his many works on classification of fossil fishes, he authored a general textbook on evolution, Evolution,^[4] in 1978 (and a revised 2nd edition in 1999), and edited Molecules and Morphology in Evolution: Conflict or Compromise? (1987),^[5] a book on the use of molecular and morphological evidence for inferring phylogenies. He also wrote two classic papers on homology.^[6][7]

Patterson did not support creationism, but his work has been cited by creationists with claims that it provides evidence of the absence of transitional forms in the fossil record.^[8][9] In the second edition of Evolution (1999), Patterson stated that his remarks had been taken out of context:

Because creationists lack scientific research to support such theories as a young earth ... a world-wide flood ... or separate ancestry for humans and apes, their common tactic is to attack evolution by hunting out debate or dissent among evolutionary biologists. ... I learned that one should think carefully about candour in argument (in publications, lectures, or correspondence) in case one was furnishing creationist campaigners with ammunition in the form of 'quotable quotes', often taken out of context.^[10]

Awards and honours

• Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1993^[11]
• Romer-Simpson Medal of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, 1997^[12]
• Linnean Medal, 1998^[13]

Personal life

In 1955, he married the artist Rachel Caridwen Richards (b. 1932), who was the elder daughter of the artists Ceri Richards and Frances Richards. They had two daughters, Sarah (b. 1959) and Jane (b. 1963).^[3]

He died in London of a heart attack on 9 March 1998.^[14]

References

1. Fortey, R. A. (1999). "Colin Patterson. 13 October 1933--9 March 1998: Elected F.R.S. 1993". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 45: 365. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1999.0025.
2. Nelson, Paul A. (1996). "A Colin Patterson Sampler". Colorado Springs, CO: Access Research Network. Retrieved 21 May 2015.
3. Forey, Peter L. (2004). "Patterson, Colin". In Matthew, H.C.G.; Harrison, Brian (eds.). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 43. Oxford, UK; New York: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/69557. ISBN 0-19-861411-X. LCCN 2004005444.
4. Patterson, Colin (1978). Evolution. Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, England: Routledge & Kegan Paul. ISBN 0-7100-0011-1. LCCN 77007865.

   • Patterson, Colin (1999). Evolution. Comstock Book Series (2nd illustrated, revised ed.). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-8594-0.
5. Patterson, Colin, ed. (1987). Molecules and Morphology in Evolution: Conflict or Compromise?. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-33860-3. LCCN 86023318. "Papers presented at the Third International Congress of Systematic and Evolutionary Biology, held at the University of Sussex, 4–11 July 1985."
6. Patterson, Colin (1982), "Morphological characters and homology", in Joysey, Kenneth A; Friday, A. E. (eds.), Problems in Phylogenetic Reconstruction, Systematics Association Special Volume 21, London: Academic Press, ISBN 978-0-12-391250-3.
7. Patterson, Colin (1988). "Homology in classical and molecular biology". Molecular Biology and Evolution. 5 (6): 603–625. doi:10.1093/oxfordjournals.molbev.a040523. PMID 3065587.
8. Nelson, Paul A. (Winter 1996). "Colin Patterson Revisits His Famous Question about Evolution". Origins & Design. 17 (1). Colorado Springs, CO: Access Research Network. ISSN 0748-9919. Retrieved 1 December 2014.
9. Sunderland, Luther D. (1988). Darwin's Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems (4th revised and expanded ed.). San Diego, CA: Master Books. p. 89. ISBN 0-89051-108-X. "Yet Gould and the American Museum people are hard to contradict when they say there are no transitional fossils. ... I will lay it on the line – there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument." – Patterson as quoted by Sunderland.
10. Bartelt, Karen (May–June 2000). "Review: Evolution". Reports of the National Center for Science Education (Book review). 20 (3). Berkeley, CA: National Center for Science Education: 38–39. ISSN 2158-818X. Retrieved 21 May 2015. Bartelt quoting from Patterson, Evolution (1999), p. 122
11. "List of Fellows of the Royal Society 1660 – 2007" (PDF). Royal Society. Retrieved 21 May 2015.
12. "Past Award Winners". Society of Vertebrate Paleontology. Archived from the original on 17 March 2019. Retrieved 21 May 2014.
13. "Medals and Prizes". Linnean Society of London. Archived from the original on 8 May 2015. Retrieved 21 May 2015.
14. Nelson, Gareth (2008). "Patterson, Colin". Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography. HighBeam Research. Retrieved 21 May 2015.

Further reading

• Nelson, Paul A. (1996). "A Colin Patterson Sampler". Colorado Springs, CO: Access Research Network. Retrieved 21 May 2015.
• Theunissen, Lionel (24 June 1997). "Patterson Misquoted: A Tale of Two 'Cites'". TalkOrigins Archive. Houston, TX: The TalkOrigins Foundation, Inc. Retrieved 21 May 2015.